GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


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A  BRIEF  INTRODUCTION 


TO 


MODERN    PHILOSOPHY 


BY 

ARTHUR  KENYON  ROGERS,  Ph.D. 


^  OF 

UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:    MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1899 

/J//  rights  reserved 


vi  Preface 

to  everyday  beliefs  and  interests,  and  show 
the  real  meaning  of  philosophy  in  terms 
of  these;  and  it  must  possess  sufficient 
definiteness  of  treatment  to  convey  a  uni- 
fied impression,  and  not  to  leave  behind 
the  feeling  of  having  been  engaged  with  a 
number  of  interesting,  but  not  very  closely 
connected,  problems.  There  are  several 
excellent  and  well-known  introductions  to 
philosophy,  but  none  of  them,  I  believe, 
exactly  covers  the  ground  just  outlined. 
That  there  is  room  for  another  attempt  I 
think  teachers  generally  will  admit,  though 
I  am  far  from  being  sure  that  I  have  been 
able  to  meet  the  need. 

While,  however,  I  have  tried  to  state  the 
problems  as  simply  as  they  will  admit  of 
being  stated,  I  do  not  profess  that  philoso- 
phy has  thereby  been  rendered  easy.  No 
one  can  be  a  philosopher  who  is  not  will- 
ing to  think,  and  to  think  hard,  on  his  own 
account ;  no  book  or  teacher  can  perform 
the  operation  for  him.  Any  one  who  comes 
to  the  study  must  be  presumed  to  have  his 
powers  more  or  less  matured,  and  he  must 
expect  to  be  obliged  to  use  them  to  the 


Preface  vii 

uttermost.  Nevertheless,  philosophy  has 
evolved  for  itself  a  technicality  in  stand- 
point and  phraseology  which  certainly  ad- 
mits of  simplification,  and  many  of  the 
more  or  less  artificial  difficulties  confront- 
ing the  beginner,  which  grow  out  of  this, 
may  be  removed  without  any  real  loss. 

Perhaps  an  excuse  should  be  made  for 
the  positive  character  of  the  conclusions 
which  are  here  set  forth.  I  certainly  do 
not  wish  to  appear  dogmatic,  or  to  claim 
for  my  opinions  any  greater  value  than 
they  possess.  But  it  has  seemed  to  me 
that  the  danger  of  leaving  too  strong  an 
impression  of  the  authoritative  nature  of 
the  particular  conclusions  advanced  is  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  the  opposite  dan- 
ger, in  case  one  tries  to  be  too  objective  in 
his  tone,  of  leaving  no  unified  impression 
at  all.  An  introductory  treatment  of  philo- 
sophical problems  which  does  not  lead  up 
to  positive  and  constructive  results  is  apt, 
I  think,  to  be  unsatisfactory,  especially  to 
the  reader  who  has  no  previous  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject,  and  whose  interest 
has  to  a  considerable   extent   still   to   be 


viii  Preface 

aroused.  The  real  end  at  which  such  a 
book  should  aim  is  undoubtedly  the  under- 
standing of  problems,  but  this  end  may 
be  best  attained  by  bringing  to  bear  upon 
the  problems  some  definite  point  of  view. 
Then  whether  the  student  accepts  the 
particular  solution  or  not,  he  has  at  least 
a  well-defined  starting-point  for  his  own 
inquiry. 


OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY 
•^CALIFO0> 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction •  3 

Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism             .  23 

Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    .  61 

Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     .  87 

Kant 129 

Hegel 159 

Agnosticism  and  the  Theory  of  Know- 
ledge     221^ 

Theistic  Idealism 267 

Scepticism  and  the  Criterion  of  Truth    315 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 


UNIVERSITY 
>^CALIFP^> 

INTRODUCTION 


O  man  who  is  able  to  learn  from 
experience  at  all,  can  live  very 
long  in  the  world  without  find- 
ing himself  continually  passing  judgment, 
in  one  way  or  another,  on  the  meaning 
and  the  value  of  life.  At  the  very  least 
there  will  be  some  things  which  it  will 
seem  to  him  to  be  worth  the  while  to  do, 
and  other  things,  again,  which  will  fail  to 
interest  him,  and  which  by  implication 
therefore  he  will  condemn ;  but  besides 
such  fragmentary  and  instinctive  judg- 
ments, he  also,  if  he  reflects  at  all,  can 
hardly  help  but  ask  himself  at  times 
whether  life  has  not  some  meaning  as 
a  whole,  which  would  serve  to  throw  light 
on  the  scattered  and  chaotic  fragments  of 
his  everyday  experience,  and  bring  them 
3 


4  Introduction 

into  some  degree  of  unity.  Now  philoso- 
phy, apart  from  technicaHties  of  definition, 
is  nothing  but  an  attempt,  in  a  reasoned 
and  comprehensive  way,  to  answer  this 
question,  What  is  the  meaning  of  life? 
Every  one,  therefore,  in  so  far  as  he 
adopts  a  certain  general  attitude  towards 
the  problems  that  meet  him,  looks  at  them 
from  a  certain  point  of  view,  and  does  not 
simply  let  himself  drift  from  one  experi- 
ence to  another  without  any  purpose  or 
unity  to  connect  them,  is  taking  the  stand- 
point of  philosophy.  Such  an  attitude  we 
call  his  philosophy  of  life,  and  if  he  is 
more  or  less  clearly  conscious  of  what  this 
attitude  is,  and  is  able  to  express  it  in  a 
unified  and  consistent  way,  we  say  in  a 
popular  sense  that  he  is  a  philosopher. 
Technical  philosophy  differs  from  this 
only  in  the  fact  that  it  tries  to  do 
thoroughly,  and  in  full  consciousness  of 
itself,  what  in  popular  thinking  we  do  in 
a  loose  and  unsystematic  fashion.  Instead 
of  picking  out  those  factors  in  life  which 


Introduction  5 

appeal  to  us  more  personally  and  directly, 
it  tries  to  set  individual  prejudices  and 
limitations  aside,  and  to  include,  as  impar- 
tially as  it  can,  all  the  elements  which  ex- 
perience presents.  It  is  true  that  in  doing 
this  it  frequently  gets  far  enough  from 
what  seem  to  be  living  interests ;  but  back 
of  all  technical  discussions,  there  is  still 
the  underlying  conviction  that  by  this 
path,  and  this  alone,  can  we  get  at  the 
vital  and  essential  meaning  of  the  world, 
or  else  we  have  no  longer  philosophy,  but 
mere  pedantry  and  hair-splitting.  It  is 
natural,  then,  that  we  should  find  the  defi- 
nitions which  men  have  given  of  philoso- 
phy at  different  times  are  not  by  any 
means  the  same.  They  are  not  the  same 
because,  under  different  circumstances, 
men's  interests  are  directed  to  different 
points,  now  to  the  importance  of  conduct, 
now  to  the  nature  of  the  external  world, 
now  to  the  existence  of  supersensible  reali- 
ties. But  to  say  that  their  interest  lies  at 
one   point   or  another,   is  only  to  say  in 


6  Introdmtion 

other  words  that  here  they  find  the  value 
of  life ;  this  is  the  test  that  can  always  be 
applied,  the  real  motive,  if  not  the  appar- 
ent one.  So  we  can  speak  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  any  pursuit  Whatever  in  which  men 
can  engage,  or  of  any  subject  which  can 
occupy  them,  of  science,  of  history,  of 
the  technical  arts.  Between  science  and 
the  philosophy  of  science,  history  and  the 
philosophy  of  history,  there  is  indeed  no 
hard  and  fast  separation ;  but  what  in  the 
one  case  we  are  specially  concerned  with 
is  the  positive  nature  and  the  laws  of  a 
certain  group  of  facts,  which  have  been 
selected  out  from  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
be  studied  by  themselves,  while  in  the 
other  we  restore  that  connection  with  the 
whole  which  for  the  time  being  we  had  set 
aside,  and  try  to  look  at  our  facts  in  the 
light  of  the  meaning  which  they  have  for 
life  in  its  entirety. 

Even  when  it  is  stated  in  this  prelimi- 
nary way,  the  definition  which  has  been 
given  of  philosophy  will  be  seen  to  have 


Introduction  7 

a  bearing  on  the  disputes  which  have  been 
common  about  the  value  of  the  study,  and 
the  very  unequal  estimation  in  which  it 
has  been  held.  There  are  many  people 
to  whom  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  has 
seemed  to  be,  at  best,  of  very  doubtful 
utility.  Sometimes  it  is  one  who,  like 
Matthew  Arnold,  is  so  impressed  with  the 
concrete  values  of  art  and  conduct  that 
the  world  of  the  philosopher  seems  to 
him  abstract  and  barren  in  comparison. 
More  often  it  is  the  man  of  science,  who 
feels  that  he  has  got  hold  of  reality  so  im- 
mediately and  palpably  in  the  world  of 
matter,  and  of  reality  which  is  so  far- 
reaching  in  its  significance,  that  he  has  no 
interest  left  to  give  the  supersensuous  and 
very  doubtful  world  which  he  understands 
that  philosophy  is  trying  to  construct  by 
merely  thinking  about  it.  Now  the  an- 
swer to  be  made  the  scientist  is  this,  that 
he  is  not  getting  along  without  philosophy, 
as  he  supposes,  but  only  is  adopting  one 
particular  kind  of   philosophy,  whose  im- 


8  Introduction 

plications,  however,  he  does  not  try  to 
understand.  And  he  can  hardly  hold  that 
this  refusal  to  examine  into  the  presuppo- 
sitions of  his  thinking  is,  in  opposition  to 
the  metaphysician's  course,  a  highly  meri- 
torious thing,  without  stultifying  his  whole 
scientific  procedure.'x  He  may,  indeed,  as 
a  scientist,  merely  devote  himself  to  the 
discovery  of  facts;  but  unless  he  is  pre- 
pared to  say  that  the  bare  objective  fact  is 
everything,  and  its  meaning,  its  value  for 
us,  is  nothing  (which  is  very  like  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms),  he  cannot  avoid  en- 
croaching on  the  philosopher's  field.  In 
reality  he  always  does  bring  with  him  his 
own  interpretation  of  the  facts  of  science, 
and  they  differentiate  the  way  in  which  he 
looks  at  the  world  from  the  way  in  which 
other  men  look  at  it;  the  only  ques- 
tion is  as  to  whether  this  should  be  con- 
scious and  thoroughgoing,  or  whether  it 
should  be  unconscious,  and  unaware  of 
the  possible  difficulties  that  may  be  in- 
volved.    In  any  case  the  mere  facts  of  the 


Introduction  9 

objective  world,  as  objective,  cannot  ex- 
haust the  problems  which  arise,  and  arise 
necessarily,  for  this  external  world  would 
not  exist,  for  us,  if  it  did  not  have  a  value 
as  coming  within  our  conscious  life,  and 
so  it  forms  but  a  part  of  experience,  not 
the  whole.  Whatever  it  may  be  in  itself, 
for  human  interest  at  least  the  objective 
fact  or  law  as  such  cannot  possibly  be  a 
final  and  sufficient  goal.  Even  the  man 
who  thinks  that  it  is  so,  must  have  some 
reason  why  the  search  for  objective  truth 
appeals  to  him;  its  simple  existence  in 
itself  does  not  explain  why  he  should  want 
to  know  it.  It  may  of  course  be  that,  in 
the  end,  one  might  be  driven  to  admit  that 
no  vital  relation  to  human  life  could  be 
discovered  ;  in  that  case  science  at  once 
would  cease  to  be  pursued.  But  answera- 
ble or  not,  at  least  it  cannot  be  said  that 
when  the  problems  go  beyond  mere  scien- 
tific matter  of  fact  they  cease  to  have  any 
interest  for  us ;  knowing  the  chemical  com- 
position of  water  will  not  satisfy  us  in  face 


10  Introduction 

of  the  larger  question,  What  is  this  world 
of  which  our  lives  form  a  part  ?  what  is 
its  meaning  and  destiny  ?  And  it  is 
through  philosophy,  not  through  science, 
that  this  latter  question  must  receive  an 
answer,  if  it  is  answered  at  all. 

Nevertheless  there  is  some  justifica- 
tion for  this  contemptuous  attitude  which 
science  is  apt  to  adopt  towards  philoso- 
phy, and  which  grows  out  of  the  true 
feeling  that  any  value  which  is  really 
worth  our  consideration  must  attach  to 
the  actual  world  in  which  we  live,  not  to 
some  far-away  abstract  world,  which  only 
can  be  got  at  by  the  occasional  philoso- 
pher, and  through  the  colorless  medium 
of  thought.  What  we  are  after  is  the 
meaning  of  life  as  we  live  it,  and  if  we 
come  out  at  the  end  with  something  that 
finds  no  place  for  the  concrete  values  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  then  certainly  a 
large  factor  in  the  problem  has  withX)ut 
any  justification  been  juggled  out  of  sight. 
So  that  we  have  to  insist,  in  the  second 


place,  that  the  data  which  the  philosopher 

uses  are  not  something  which,  by  a  pure 
act  of  intellectual  creation,  he  spins  out 
of  his  own  head,  but  the  same  facts  with 
which  science,  and  history,  and  everyday 
living,  deal.  In  this  sense,  therefore,  the 
philosopher  is  dependent  on  the  scientist ; 
he  cannot  go  his  own  way  and  construct 
his  world  a  priori,  but  he  must  continually 
be  falling  back  upon  the  concrete  know- 
ledge which  science  represents.  So,  also, 
philosophy  does  not  "give  us  God,  free- 
dom, immortality,"  if  by  this  we  mean 
that  it  somehow  puts  us  in  possession  of 
values  which  we  had  not  before  suspected. 
Religion,  morality,  the  social  life,  all  come 
before  philosophy,  and  are  presupposed 
by  it;  and  philosophy,  in  turn,  in  so  far 
as  it  is  only  a  bare  recognition  of  truths, 
and  not  a  vital  appreciation  of  them,  in 
so  far  as  it  stops  with  itgelf  as  mere 
knowing,  and  does  not  hand  back  the 
material  whiph  it  has  been  elaborating 
intellectually,  to  the  immediate  experience 


12  Introduction      ^\ 

in  which  this  originated,  is  forgetting  its 
place  as  the  handmaid  of  life,  and  so  is 
rendering  itself  barren  and  formal.  All 
that  philosophy  can  do  is  to  take  the 
actual  values  which  come  to  us  in  ex- 
perience, work  out  their  implications  and 
their  mutual  relationships,  and,  it  may 
be,  get  at  some  unitary  point  of  view, 
from  which  each  element  can  be  looked 
at,  and  have  full  justice  done  it.  But  by 
this  very  process  it  will  be  making  a 
positive  addition  to  the  value  of  experi- 
ence itself,  not  by  creating  truths  which 
are  entirely  new,  but  by  clearing  up  and 
throwing  new  light  upon  the  meaning 
which  already  has  been  present  in  our 
lives,  and  so  making  it  more  real  to  us. 
And  this  will  also  serve  to  indicate 
the  answer  to  a  very  common  complaint 
against  philosophy,  in  which  it  is  set 
over  against  feeling,  as  something  quite 
opposed.  It  is  common  to  hear  people 
say,  After  all,  it  is  feeling  truth,  not 
reasoning  about   it,  which  is   the   impor- 


Introduction  13 

tant  thing ;  and  philosophy,  by  translating 
everything  over  into  the  cold  and  imper- 
sonal medium  of  thought,  and  by  intro- 
ducing all  sorts  of  doubts  and  limitations, 
is  a  foe  to  that  immediate  enjoyment 
of  truth  which  alone  is  worth  the  having. 
Whether  this  is  true  or  not  depends 
entirely  on  what  we  mean  by  it.  If  we 
mean  by  feeling  unintelligent,  blind  feel- 
ing, just  the  mere  confused  sense  of  satis- 
faction, it  is  not  true  at  all.  But  this  is 
not  what  we  mean  when  we  speak  of 
feeling  as  it  is  aroused  by  poetry  or  art : 
that  is  equivalent  rather  to  insight,  in- 
telligent appreciation.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
something  which  is  opposed  to  reason, 
but  its  highest,  most  immediate  exercise. 
But  here  again  we  shall  be  doing  an 
injustice  if  we  oppose  immediacy  too 
sharply  to  the  more  laborious  and  reflec- 
tive work  of  thought.  It  is  not  philoso- 
phy which  comes  in  to  spoil  the  fineness 
of  the  enjoyment  we  get  in  immediate 
feeling,   but   it  is   the    fact   that    feeling 


14  Introduction 

breaks  down,  and  will  no  longer  satisfy 
us,  that  compels  us  to  betake  ourselves 
to  thought.  Feelings  are  sure  to  clash, 
and  then  they  possess  no  criterion  within 
themselves  which  shall  say  whether  this 
feeling  or  that  one  is  the  truer;  merely 
as  feeling  they  cannot  tell  us  whether 
they  are  valid  objectively,  or  whether  we 
are  only  deluding  ourselves  with  subjec- 
tive emotions, ♦^-To  compare  their  values, 
and  to  bring  them  to  the  test  of  their 
consonancy  with  the  whole  of  life,  thought 
is  needed;  but  that  does  not  mean  that 
we  pass  from  immediate  experience  to 
something  higher,  thought ;  it  means  that, 
through  thought,  we  get  from  an  imme- 
diacy which  is  limited  and  partial,  to 
one  which  is  truer,  richer,  and  more 
inclusive. 

Now  systems  of  philosophy  are  simply 
attempts  to  get  at  a  unified  way  of  look- 
ing at  things,  and  in  the  following  pages 
we  shall  have  to  consider  how  such  sys- 
tems have   grown  up,  and  what   are   the 


Introduction  15 

particular  problems  they  have  set  them- 
selves to  solve.  And  in  a  general  way 
we  may  say  that  they  all  of  them  have 
to  do  with  a  few  very  simple-looking 
assumptions,  which  every  one  is  accus- 
tomed to  make,  and  which  are  so  natural 
that  when  our  attention  is  first  called  to 
them  we  hardly  see  how  anybody  can  be 
so  foolish  as  to  bring  them  into  ques- 
tion. We  all  feel  very  sure,  that  is,  that 
out  there  in  space  a  lot  of  things  exist, 
—  trees,  stones,  houses,  —  which  we  know 
are  there  because  we  see  them  when  we 
open  our  eyes,  and  touch  them  when 
we  stretch  out  our  hands.  To  be  sure, 
we  are  not  looking  at  them  all  the  time, 
but  that  makes  no  difference  to  the  things 
themselves;  they  still  are  there,  whether 
we  see  them  or  not.  Then  again  we  are 
sure  that  we  ourselves  exist.  If  we  were 
asked  to  define  this  "self,"  we  might 
indeed  have  difficulty  in  determining  just 
in  what  it  consisted,  but  in  general  it  is 
that  which   thinks   and   feels,  has   sensa- 


16  Introdttction 

tions  and  desires,  and  acts  according  to 
conscious  purposes,  none  of  which  attri- 
butes are  we  ready  to  suppose  belong  to 
things  in  the  external  world.  Finally,  it 
is  not  only  my  own  self  that  I  believe 
in,  but  I  am  just  as  firmly  convinced 
of  the  existence  of  other  selves,  with 
whom  I  am  continually  in  communication. 
These  three  assumptions  it  never  enters 
into  the  head  of  the  ordinary  man  to 
doubt. 

Now  in  these  beliefs,  on  which  every 

one,   including    the    philosopher   himself, 

continually  is    acting,  there  are   involved 

the  various  problems  of  philosophy,  even 

the   most  abstract.      This  world   of   men 

and  things  which  we  assume  seems  clear 

and  unambiguous   in   its   nature   only  so 

long  as  we  refrain   from  thinking  about 

it;   a  very  little  consideration  shows  the 

/    necessity    of    defining    more    exactly    in 

L^^what  the  reality  of  these  things  consists, 

^"^    f^iow  they  are  to  be  thought.     In  so  far 

as  philosophy  has  this  problem,  of  deter- 


Introduction  1 7 

mining  the  true  nature  of  the  real,  it  is 
called  Ontology.  If  we  start  by  assuming 
the  separation  between  mind  and  matter, 
we  must  ask  precisely  what  it  is  we 
mean  by  these  two  terms,  and  then  the 
more  they  seem  to  differ  from  and  exclude 
each  other,  the  more  insistent  becomes 
the  problem  as  to  how  that  still  more 
basal  form  of  reality  is  to  be  conceived, 
which  shall  restore  the  unity  of  which 
philosophy  is  in  search.  But  things  not 
only  exist,  they  have  a  history ;  and 
this  brings  us  into  still  more  evident 
contact  with  the  practical  values  of  ex- 
perience. For  any  inquiry  into  the  laws 
which  govern  the  history  of  the  material 
world,  into  the  nature  and  connection 
of  the  world  processes,  raises  at  once 
and  inevitably  the  question,  what  relation 
these  have  to  our  own  conscious  lives 
and  purposes,  whether  they  are  mechani- 
cal merely,  and  indifferent  to  human 
interests,  or  whether  something  in  the 
nature  of  meaning  and   aim   can   be   de- 


18  Introduction 

tected  in  them.  This  in  general  is  the 
field  of  Cosmology.  But  now  the  fact 
that  we  started  with  individuals  more  or 
less  distinct  from  the  world,  gives  rise 
to  a  third  set  of  problems.  It  is  soon 
apparent  that  we  cannot  talk  about  the 
nature  of  reality,  without  also  giving 
some  account  of  the  source  from  which 
we  get  our  knowledge,  a  problem  which 
again  becomes  more  difficult,  the  more 
v;e  insist  upon  the  separation  between 
the  knower  and  the  object  which  is 
known.  An  answer  to  this  question, 
What  is  the  nature  of  knowledge  .^^  or 
How  is  knowledge  possible.'*  constitutes 
Epistemology. 

Of  course  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  these  three  provinces  of 
philosophy  deal  with  problems  that  are 
in  any  strict  sense  distinct;  in  reality  it 
is  all  the  while  a  single  problem  which 
we  are  approaching  from  different  sides. 
That  problem  is,  to  get  some  way  of 
looking    at    things     as    a    whole,     some 


Introduction  19 

unitary  conception  which  shall  find  a 
place  for  the  actual  facts  of  life,  and  by 
reference  to  which  we  may  have  some 
reasonable  ground  for  believing  that  these 
facts  possess  real  validity  and  worth. 
Philosophical  systems  are  simply  the  most 
general  points  of  view  from  which  this 
unity  has  been  sought.  What  we  shall 
attempt,  then,  in  the  following  pages, 
will  be  to  consider  some  of  the  reasons 
for,  and  some  of  the  objections  to,  those 
general  standpoints  which  differentiate 
on'e  philosophical  system  from  another, 
and  to  show  how  they  are  connected 
with  and  grow  out  of  one  another.  We 
shall  deal,  that  is,  with  what  perhaps 
may  best  be  called  Metaphysics,  without 
attempting  to  say  much  about  the  more 
detailed  problems  of  the  special  philo- 
sophical disciplines,  —  Ethics,  Psychology, 
Logic,  and  the  like.  Metaphysics  can, 
indeed,  only  receive  body  and  content  as  it 
is  worked  out  into  these  details,  and  the 
latter  may  frequently  be  decisive  in  lead- 


20  Introduction 

ing  us  to  one  standpoint  rather  than 
another.  But  nevertheless  this  general 
standpoint  is  a  perfectly  definite  thing, 
which,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  af- 
fects profoundly  the  treatment  of  special 
problems;  and  logically  it  precedes  the 
latter,  as  the  presupposition  under  which 
the  data  for  their  solution  take  shape. 
It  is,  therefore,  extremely  important  for 
us,  even  as  psychologists  and  logicians, 
to  understand  the  nature  of  these  pre- 
suppositions, and  not  to  let  them  remain 
hidden  and  unclarified,  in  which  case  they 
are  likely  to  confuse  both  ourselves  and 
others.  The  task  of  clarifying  them  is 
what  philosophy,  as  general  philosophy, 
or  Metaphysics,  undertakes  to  perform. 


DUALISM,  PANTHEISM,  AND 
THEISM 


DUALISM,  PANTHEISM,  AND 
THEISM 

|HE  problems  which  commonly 
fall  under  the  head  of  Meta- 
physics are  practically  bound 
up  in  this  one  comprehensive  question, 
What  is  the  fundamental  nature  of 
reality,  of  the  universe  in  which  we  are 
placed  ?  for  such  a  question  is  essen- 
tially involved  in  any  attempt  to  deter- 
mine what  our  relations  to  the  world  are, 
either  in  the  way  of  knowledge  or  of 
action.  However  much  metaphysical  in- 
quiries may  seem  to  lead  from  the  region 
of  concrete  interests,  yet  it  is  evident 
we  cannot  proceed  very  far  towards  the 
understanding  of  any  fact  of  experience, 
until  this  question  has  found  some  sort 
of  answer,  if  not  as  an  explicit  theory, 
23 


24      Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

at  least  as  an  unformulated  attitude 
towards  life,  which  governs  our  think- 
ing without  our  being  conscious  of  it. 

In  so  far  as  men  are  able  to  live 
simply  and  unreflectively,  we  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  life  presents  to 
them  any  of  those  antitheses  and  dual- 
isms into  which  it  is  split  up  for  more 
reflective  minds,  and  which  give  phi- 
losophy its  excuse  for  being.  Much  the 
same  thing  is  true,  probably,  in  the  case 
of  the  child.  Life  for  him  is  harmoni- 
ous and  a  whole ;  the  external  world 
enters  into  his  experience  simply  as  an 
instrument  for  carrying  out  what  he 
wants  to  do,  and  so  long  as  he  is  able 
thus  to  satisfy  approximately  his  inter- 
ests and  desires,  there  is  no  need  that 
he  should  puzzle  himself  any  further 
about  the  nature  of  the  things  which 
form  a  part  of  his  life;  their  existence 
is  summed  up  for  him  in  the  service 
they  perform.  But  this  active  realiza- 
tion of   the  unity  of   life   does   not   long 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     25 

remain  unbroken.  As  soon  as  we  are 
forced  by  the  failure  of  immediate  satis- 
faction into  the  attitude  of  thinking  about 
the  world,  a  host  of  opposing  elements 
at  once  arise.  We  think,  indeed,  for  the 
purpose  ultimately  of  bringing  things  into 
harmony,  but  the  immediate  result  of 
thought  is  to  set  up  on  a  basis  of  its 
own  what  had  not  previously  called  any 
direct  attention  to  itself,  and  to  mark  it 
off  from  the  rest  of  experience  in  order 
to  examine  it  better,  as  if  it  had  a  de- 
gree of  independence.  The  most  funda- 
mental of  these  distinctions  which  thought 
introduces  into  experience  is  that  between 
the  external  world  of  matter  and  the  con- 
scious self.  Modern  philosophy,  in  agree-  f' 
ment  here  with  our  ordinary  common-sense 
judgments,  starts  in  with  Descartes  by  ac- 
cepting the  dualism,  and  thus  the  nature  i 
of  the  problems  with  which  it  has  at  first  \ 
to  occupy  itself  is  already  determined.  ^ 

There  are  two  questions  at  least  which, 
on    such    an    assumption,    will    evidently 


26     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

need  to  be  answered.  How,  in  the  first 
place,  shall  we  define  these  two  differ- 
ent sorts  of  reality,  mind  and  matter? 
what  is  the  precise  nature  of  each,  and 
the  peculiarity  which  distinguishes  it 
from  the  other?  And  then,  after  this  is 
answered.  What  is  the  relation  between 
them,  the  nature  of  the  connection 
which,  in  spite  of  their  difference,  makes 
them,  after  all,  elements  in  a  single 
world  ?  Both  these  questions  may  for 
the  present  be  considered  somewhat 
briefly. 

At  first  glance  it  would  not  seem  to 
be  a  very  difficult  matter  to  tell  what 
it  is  we  mean  by  a  "  thing " ;  we  have 
only  to  point  to  this  or  that  thing,  a 
stone,  or  a  tree,  or  a  man,  and  our 
meaning,  we  think,  is  sufficiently  clear 
without  the  need  of  further  explanation. 
But  philosophy  has  to  justify  its  mean- 
ings in  terms  of  thought,  and  it  is 
much  easier  to  recognize  a  thing  prac- 
tically, than  to  define  in  what  its  thing- 


Dualism,  Pantheism,   and   Theism     27 

hood  consists.  On  the  one  hand  we 
meet  with  that  characteristic  which,  as 
far  back  as  the  times  of  the  early 
Greeks,  aroused  men's  curiosity  about 
the  world,  and  proved  the  first  spur  to 
inquiry  that  can  properly  be  called  phil- 
osophic, —  the  universal  flux  of  things, 
whereby  they  pass  almost  continuously 
one  into  another,  and,  in  the  shifting 
play  of  elements  which  results,  no  trace 
of  an  abiding  reality  remains,  and  no 
boundaries  can  be  fixed  which  are  not 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree  arbitrary 
and  uncertain.  How  can  we  speak  of 
a  thing  as  the  "same,"  when  every- 
thing that  we  know  is  undergoing  a 
constant  process  of  change  .-*  Or,  if  we 
turn  away  from  this  continual  process 
of  transformation,  and  take  some  one 
point  in  the  history  of  any  so-called 
thing,  the  unity  begins  to  disappear  in 
another  way.  About  any  such  "thing" 
it  is  possible  to  make  a  great  variety 
of    statements :    the    stone    is    hard,    and 


28     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

round,  and  smooth,  and  white,  and  so 
we  may  go  on  indefinitely;  and  as  re- 
gards all  these  qualities,  we  think  we 
know  pretty  much  what  we  mean.  But 
now  when  we  are  finished,  apparently 
all  that  is  left  on  our  hands  is  a  mass 
of  different  qualities,  while  the  stone 
itself,  the  unity  which  binds  them  all 
together  into  the  one  thing,  has  dis- 
appeared  from   view. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  what  we 
mean  by  a  stone  is  not  simply  and 
solely  a  list  of  qualities,  hardness  and 
shape  and  color,  but  a  something  which 
is  hard  and  round  and  white.  Back, 
that  is,  of  all  the  separate  qualities  that 
may  be  enumerated,  we  tend  to  set  up 
an  entity  of  some  sort  which  binds 
these  qualities  together,  and  in  which  as 
a  unity  they  inhere.  This  philosophical 
conception  of  an  underlying  substratum, 
or  substance,  of  which  the  different 
qualities  are  only  phenomenal  manifes- 
tations,    has     passed     into     our     current 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     29 

ways  of  thinking  so  completely  that  it 
seems  a  tolerably  clear  and  definite 
notion.  We  go  to  work  in  precisely 
the  same  way  when  we  come  to  deal 
with  consciousness.  If  we  try  to  ana- 
lyze the  self  and  define  what  it  is,  all 
that  we  seem  able  to  lay  hold  of  defi- 
nitely, in  the  way  of  solid  and  verifiable 
fact,  is  a  lot  of  particular  sensations, 
particular  desires,  particular  feelings, 
while  the  unity,  as  the  philosopher 
Hume  clearly  pointed  out,  has  a  way 
of  slipping  through  our  fingers.  But 
we  all  feel  that  the  self  is  a  single  self, 
not  a  mere  collection  of  particular  con- 
scious states  or  acts.  Accordingly,  just 
as  we  place  behind  the  group  of  quali- 
ties a  substance  to  which  they  belong, 
so  behind  the  particular  elements  of  con- 
sciousness we  place  a  unitary  soul,  an 
undefinable  substratum  with  various  fac- 
ulties, which  has  feelings  and  sensations, 
performs  acts,  but  which  is  more  funda- 
mental  than    any   conscious    process,    or 


30     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

collection   of   conscious   processes,   which 
manifests   it. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  here  to  dwell 
very  long  upon  the  details  of  the  prob- 
lems which  have  thus  been  started ;  it 
is  enough  to  understand  what  the  con- 
ception is,  and  what  in  a  general  way 
is  the  nature  of  the  complications  to 
which  it  gives  rise.  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  such  a  notion  of  reality  as  is  in- 
volved in  the  conception  of  substance, 
and  of  soul,  is  extremely  abstract,  that 
it  makes  reality  fixed  and  static,  and 
that  it  puts  the  essence  of  things  in  a 
sphere  which  is  quite  inaccessible  to 
human  knowledge ;  and  the  consequence 
of  this  is,  that  the  conception  is  unable 
to  perform  the  service  which  it  was  de- 
signed for.  Whatever  may  seem  to  be 
the  necessity  of  holding  to  the  notion 
of  substance,  it  was  already  seen  by 
Locke  that,  as  regards  the  nature  of 
substance,  what  substance  is,  we  are  in- 
capable   of    forming    the    slightest    idea. 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     31 

For,  of  course,  if  we  strip  it  of  all  sensi- 
ble qualities,  there  are  no  terms  left  by 
which  to  characterize  it.  Since  we  re- 
quire it  in  order  to  get  qualities  to  form 
a  unity,  we  cannot  define  it  in  terms  of 
other  qualities,  and  there  is  nothing  we 
can  say  of  it  except  that  it  is  a  unity 
of  the  qualities.  But  this  is  purely  an 
abstraction,  the  mere  idea  of  unity,  and 
does  not  tell  at  all  in  what,  concretely, 
the  unity  consists ;  it  is  the  demand  we 
set  out  with  put  down  as  its  own  solu- 
tion. And  being  abstract,  it  is  unable 
to  perform  its  work  of  uniting  things ; 
if  it  could,  we  should  never  have  had 
the  problem  in  the  first  place.  We  can- 
not leave  it,  however,  as  the  mere  ab- 
straction of  unity;  that  is  much  too 
elusive  an  idea  to  satisfy  us.  So  what 
we  do  practically  is  to  take  up  again 
with  that  uncritical  notion  of  a  "thing" 
which  we  set  out  to  define,  and  to  com- 
bine the  notion  of  abstract  unity  with 
this.      Substance  thus  appears  as  a  par- 


32     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

ticular  "something"  lying  back  of  its 
qualities  and  manifestations,  and  sepa- 
rate from  them ;  we  still  continue,  that 
is,  to  apply  to  it  the  general  category 
of  a  thing,  while  yet  every  mark  of 
what  we  empirically  know  as  things  has 
been  stripped  from  it.  But  by  thus  set- 
ting it  off  over  against  its  qualities  as  a 
distinct  something,  a  new  difficulty  has 
been  added ;  it  no  longer  is  necessary 
to  explain  simply  the  relation  of  the 
qualities  to  one  another,  but  there  is  also 
their  relation  to  the  substance  to  be 
accounted  for;  and  the  old  difficulties, 
moreover,  are  still  as  great  as  ever.  In 
so  far  as  the  substance  is  in  any  sense 
a  reality  back  of,  and  apart  from,  its 
phenomenal  appearances,  another  and  a 
separate  fact,  which,  as  it  can  exist  with- 
out this  or  that  quality,  might  conceiv- 
ably exist  without  them  all,  it  furnishes 
not  the  shadow  of  an  explanation,  prac- 
tically, for  the  actual  qualities-  and  phe- 
nomena  with    which    in    the   real    world 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     33 

we  are  dealing,  and  which  we  are  trying 
to  account  for;  while  we  have,  in  addi- 
tion, that  .  anomaly  of  a  substance  of 
which  nothing  can  be  predicated  which 
makes  its  existence,  as  a  distinct  some- 
thing, conceivable,  And,  finally,  what  is 
closely  connected  with  this,  from  another 
standpoint,  is  the  relation  of  substance 
to  change.  What  we  are  after  in  the 
concept  of  substance  is  that  which  is 
identical  with  itself,  the  solid  and  per- 
manent core  of  reality.  But  by  mark- 
ing off  the  permanent  and  identical 
element  as  separate,  and  making  it  the 
fundamental  fact  of  reality,  we  cease  to 
be  able  to  bring  it,  for  purposes  of  ex- 
planation, into  connection  with  the  world 
of  change.  If  the  substance  is  the  basis 
of,  and  therefore,  in  a  way,  more  real 
than,  its  changing  manifestations,  these 
latter  have  to  be  derived  from  it;  but 
the  very  insistence  upon  its  permanence 
and  lack  of  change  makes  the  deriva- 
tion  very   difficult,  to   say   the   least. 


34     Dualism,'  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

When  we  turn  from  the  nature  of 
mind  and  matter  in  themselves,  to  the 
relation  that  exists  between  them,  a  new 
set  of  problems  arises.  Without  asking 
now  what  substance  is  as  such,  we  may  be 
satisfied  to  define  any  particular  substance 
by  the  manner  in  which  it  expresses  it- 
self, its  most  essential  characteristics. 
And,  in  a  popular  way,  it  is  sufficiently 
exact  to  say  that  matter  is  character- 
ized by  extension,  and  by  impenetrability 
or  hardness,  while  the  peculiar  charac- 
teristic of  the  soul  is  consciousness,  — 
thought,  sensation,  and  the  like.  It  is 
in  this  way,  namely,  that  ordinary  thought 
is  accustomed  to  distinguish  between  mind 
and  matter.  So  far,  then,  as  all  the 
marks  which  characterize  them  are  con- 
cerned, mind  and  matter  are  on  the  face 
of  it  utterly  different.  Mind  is  never 
extended,  matter  is  never  conscious ; 
what  the  one  is,  the  other  is  not.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  we  ask  how  it  comes 
about   that   one   can    exert    an    influence 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     35 

on  the  other,  as,  in  connection  with  the 
activities  of  the  human  body,  they  cer- 
tainly seem  to  do,  the  imagination  finds 
it.  hard  to  picture  any  way  in  which 
this  interaction  can  be  effected.  On  the 
whole  it  seems  fairly  natural  that  one 
body  should  set  another  in  motion,  be- 
cause the  nature  of  both  of  them  is 
essentially  spatial ;  but  when  we  are  told 
of  a  motion  effected  by  a  thought,  which 
is  so  very  different  from  motion,  we  are 
apt  to  find  the  process  much  more  puz- 
zling. 

When  the  objection  is  put  like  this, 
in  the  form  of  a  difficulty  as  to  just  what 
sort  of  a  thing  we  are  to  conceive  that 
connection  between  mind  and  body  to 
be,  which  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  in- 
teraction, it  is  not  very  hard  to  show 
that  it  fails  to  be  conclusive.  It  will 
appear  later  on  that  the  supposed  sim- 
plicity of  the  idea  of  interaction  between 
two  substances  of  the  same  kind  is,  after 
all,  more   apparent   than   real.     When   it 


36     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

comes  to  representing  to  oneself  the 
nature  of  the  connection,  an  interaction 
between  two  bodies  is  just  as  difficult  to 
understand  as  one  between  a  body  and 
a  soul;  and,  consequently,  we  cannot 
reject  the  latter  simply  because  we  do 
not  see  how  it  is  done.  There  is, 
indeed,  still  a  reason,  apart  from  the 
metaphysical  one,  why  an  influence  of 
consciousness  upon  matter  is  not  so 
easily  to  be  admitted  as  the  influence 
of  one  body  on  another.  It  is  the  work- 
ing hypothesis  of  scientific  inquiry,  based 
not  so  much  on  any  a  priori  probabilities 
as  on  the  actual  success  which  has  at- 
tended science  in  the  past,  that  every 
event  in  the  material  world  can  be  suf- 
ficiently accounted  for  on  purely  physi- 
cal grounds;  and  this  has  been  greatly 
strengthened  in  later  years  through  the 
discovery  of  the  very  exact  equivalency 
between  the  amounts  of  energy  repre- 
sented in  the  various  stages  of  a  physical 
process,  and  by  the  consequent   formula- 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     37 

tion  of  the  important  Law  of  the  Con- 
servation of  Energy,  according  to  which 
the  energy  expended  in  producing  any 
physical  result  is  not  lost,  but  only 
changes  its  form,  so  that  the  sum  total 
of  energy  is  never  either  increased  or 
diminished.  It  is  clear  that,  if  this  law 
is  strictly  true,  the  activities  of  the 
human  body,  like  any  other  physical 
event,  must  have  their  complete  explana- 
tion in  the  physical  world,  and  cannot 
be  due  to  the  influence  of  an  extra-physi- 
cal fact  like  consciousness;  and  while  it 
is  out  of  the  question  to  think  of  demon- 
strating the  law  in  every  possible  case, 
yet  its  great  apparent  validity  wher- 
ever it  can  be  tested,  and  its  almost  uni- 
versal acceptance  by  men  of  science,  make 
the  existence  of  a  mutual  influence  be- 
tween mind  and  body  at  least  a  matter 
for  further  inquiry.  The  problem  which 
is  involved  in  this,  however,  need  not 
be  considered  now.  Granting  that  the 
fact  of  consciousness  has  some   influence 


38     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

in  determining  the  movements  of  the 
body,  what  is  apparent  is,  that,  if  we 
are  to  make  the  idea  of  interaction  tena- 
ble, we  shall  require  more  than  the  ex- 
istence of  two  separate  things,  whether 
it  be  two  bodies,  or  a  body  and  a  soul. 
Any  two  things  which  are  taken  to 
start  with  as  separate  from  each  other, 
necessarily  require  some  larger  concep- 
tion if  they  are  to  be  brought  into  rela- 
tion, for  a  relation  implies  that,  after  all, 
they  do  come  within  some  kind  of  a 
unity,  and  so  that  the  notion  of  them 
severally  in  their  separateness  is  inade- 
quate to  meet  the  situation.  If  they 
were  utterly  separate  in  very  deed, 
neither  of  them  could  be  anything  what- 
ever to  the  other.  If,  then,  we  retain 
the  distinction  between  mind  and  matter 
with  which  we  set  out,  we  find  it  neces- 
sary to  hunt  for  some  larger  and  more 
fundamental  reality  back  of  the  finite 
existences  we  started  with,  or  else  give 
up  the  hope  of  finding  any  unity  in  the. 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     39 

world.  Such  a  search  may  take  either 
one  of  two  directions,  which  in  a  rough 
way  may  be  called  the  theistic,  and  the 
pantheistic,  respectively.  We  may  look 
on  individual  bodies  and  souls  as  brought 
into  being,  created,  by  a  reality  which 
thus  exists  distinct  from  them,  and  whose 
creative  power  serves  as  the  explana- 
tion of  their  interactions;  or  we  may 
take  these  individual  things  as  them- 
selves expressions  of,  elements  in,  the 
total  reality  of  the  world  ground,  which, 
accordingly,  does  not  give  them  a  sepa- 
rate substantiality,  but  has  its  own  being 
wholly  summed  up  in  them.  This  last 
conception  will  be  considered  first. 

The  term  Pantheism  is  one  which  is 
used  so  popularly  and  loosely,  that  it  is 
especially  necessary  to  make  clear  to  our- 
selves just  the  form  of  theory  we  intend  to 
express  by  it.  It  might  stand  for  a  num- 
ber of  distinguishable  views,  though  these 
of  course  shade  into  one  another.  In  gen- 
eral, a  theory  would  not  be  called  panthe- 


/ 


40     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

ism,  or  monism,  which  gave  to  finite 
things,  whether  bodies  or  conscious  selves, 
any  degree  of  substantial  independence. 
Nevertheless  there  is  a  constant  tendency, 
in  a  pantheistic  scheme  of  things,  to  set 
off  the  unitary  Being,  after  all,  from  the 
finite  and  changing  world,  but  to  cover 
up  the  inconsistency  by  making  this  latter 
phenomenal^  and  consequently  something 
less  than  real.  So  here  is  a  chance  for 
ambiguity  to  be  noticed  at  the  start ;  is  the 
one  Being  which  is  to  serve  as  the  unity 
of  the  world  to  be  regarded  as  an  unknown 
something  back  of  phenomena,  or  as  itself 
exhausted  in  them  ?  On  the  one  hand,  if 
God  is  all,  then  finite  things  must  evidently 
be  a  part  of  God,  for  there  is  no  room  for 
them  outside  of  him.  If,  however,  we  take 
God  simply  as  the  sum  of  finite  manifes- 
tations, we  are  only  deceiving  ourselves  in 
supposing  we  have  attained  a  unity.  For, 
on  the  face  of  them,  things  are  separate 
and  distinct,  and  especially  is  this  so  in  the 
case   of   consciousness    and    the   external 


Dualism^  Pantheism,  and  Theism     41 

world  :  and  it  is  the  business  of  philosophy, 
not  simply  to  keep  reiterating  that  some- 
how or  other  they  are  a  unity,  but  to  arrive 
at  some  definite  conception  which  will 
make  that  unity  thinkable.  It  is  true 
there  is  a  conception  which  might  seem  to 
be  available  here,  the  conception  of  an  all- 
inclusive  consciousness,  but  this  is  not  any- 
thing we  have  a  right  to  use  so  long  as  we 
remain  on  the  level  of  the  presuppositions 
with  which  we  started.  We  are  supposing 
that  conscious  facts,  and  material  facts,  are 
both  equally  real,  and,  moreover,  that  they 
are  not  at  all  alike;  and  consequently  the 
unity  which  includes  them  cannot  be  some- 
thing which  resembles  only  one  of  them. 
A  unity  which  is  made  up  of  both  mate- 
rial bodies  and  conscious  selves  cannot 
be  spoken  of  as  matter  simply,  or  simply 
as  consciousness ;  it  is  only  a  unity,  to  re- 
peat, which  comes  from  heaping  a  mass 
of  things  together,  and  that  is  no  organic 
unity  at  all.  Accordingly  pantheism,  at 
least  in  this  its  first  phase,  is  compelled 


42     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

to  make  its  underlying  unity  in  some 
degree  transcend  the  finite  world,  if  it 
is  to  serve  as  a  unity  in  any  real  sense, 
and  so  to  move  in  the  direction  which 
has  already  been  described  in  speaking 
of  the  concepts  of  substance  and  of  soul. 
Now  along  this  path  there  is  an  easy 
approach  to  the  conclusions  of  the  pan- 
theist. It  seemed  to  be  necessary  to  ad- 
mit the  existence  of  substance,  in  order 
to  bring  the  different  qualities  into  con- 
nection, and  of  a  soul,  to  do  the  same 
office  for  the  elements  of  !he  conscious 
life.  But  these  two  series  have  them- 
selves also  to  be  joined.  Now  as  soon 
as  substance  begins  to  be  thought  of  as 
existing  independently  of  its  qualities,  we 
are  compelled  to  recognize  that  of  its 
nature  as  thus  existing  by  itself  nothing 
whatever  is  known ;  and  the  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  soul  as  well.  If,  then, 
nothing  is  known  of  the  reality  underly- 
ing the  phenomena  of  matter  and  of  mind, 
we  no  longer  have  any  reason  for  assert- 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     43 

ing  that  the  reality  is  different  in  the 
two  cases;  they  may  just  as  easily  be  the 
expression  of  a  single  reality,  or  sub- 
stance, as  of  two.  This  is  not  to  break 
down  the  distinction  between  mind  and 
matter  as  attributes,  or  phenomena;  as 
such  they  are  altogether  unlike.  But  so 
are  the  attributes  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  assign  to  a  unitary  thing  in  the 
external  world,  —  color,  e.g.,  and  sounds 
And  if  the  underlying  substance  is  really 
to  serve  as  a  principle  of  unity,  it  is  not 
only  possibleT  thus  to  give  up  the  inde- 
pendent substantial  existence  of  matter 
and  of  soul,  but  we  seem  by  all  means 
to  be  driven  to  it,  under  penalty  of  adding 
arbitrarily  to  the  number  of  distinct  exist- 
ences which  it  is  our  problem  to  unite. 

There  is  another  result  of  this  concep- 
tion which  calls  for  a  passing  notice. 
If  mind  and  matter  are  only  different 
expressions  of  an  underlying  unity,  it  no 
longer  is  necessary  to  think  of  them  as 
exercising    a    mutual    influence    on    each 


44     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

other.  This  is  the  solution  which  Spi- 
noza gives  to  the  problem  of  interaction 
between  body  and  soul.  We  find  a  cer- 
tain relation  between  the  series  of  mate- 
rial changes  in  the  body,  and  the  series 
of  conscious  events,  but  this  is  not  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  mind  moves  the  body, 
or  that  the  body  causes  sensations  to 
arise  in  consciousness :  such  a  relation 
is  only  what  we  should  expect  if  both 
series  are  but  differing  expressions  of 
one  and  the  same  real  existence.  Each 
series  is,  then,  shut  up  entirely  within 
itself,  so  far  as  the  other  is  concerned; 
the  explanation  of  their  relationship  is  to 
be  looked  for  in  the  ultimate  unity  of 
which  they  are  parallel,  but  in  nature 
essentially  different,  manifestations. 

In  a  general  way  such  a  conception 
as  has  just  been  stated  already  has  come 
in  for  criticism.  As  soon  as  we  start 
to  make  the  ultimate  reality  a  sorciQthing 
distinct  from  its  attributes,  we  are  sepa- 
rating it  from  the  world  of  finite  occur- 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     45 

rences,  and  rendering  it  useless  as  an 
I  explanation  of  them.  If  the  essence  of 
reality  is  this  permanent,  unchanging, 
indeterminate  background,  how  does  it 
bring  about  the  world  of  change,  of  the 
interplay  of  transient  qualities,  which  we 
know  ?  If  change  and  finiteness  do  not 
belong  to  the  inner  reality  of  the  world, 
what  sort  of  an  existence  have  they  ? 
logically  we  ought  to  deny  them  alto- 
gether, and  that  is  a  pretty  difficult  thing 
to  do.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  do 
bring  them  within  the  sacred  calm  of 
the  identical  unitary  Being,  we  have  got 
to  show  how  they  are  consistent  with 
this,  or  else  give  up  our  unity.  If,  to 
repeat,  we  put  the  reality  of  existence 
back  of  finite  things,  we  cut  them  off 
from  reality,  and  thus  make  them  quite 
inexplicable ;  if  we  identify  reality  with 
them,  we  are  left  with  a  mere  jumble  of 
conflicting  particulars,  which  no  amount 
of  calling  a  unity  will  really  make  so 
for  the  understanding. 


46     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  criti- 
cism is  based  upon  the  ordinary  point  of 
view,  that  both  finite  things  and  minds 
have  at  least  some  measure  of  reaUty  in 
themselves.  There  are,  however,  two 
different  standpoints  which,  in  panthe- 
istic theories,  are  easily  confused  with 
this,  and  so  serve  to  make  the  difficulties 
less  apparent.  Conceivably  it  might  be 
maintained,  as  was  suggested  only  a  few 
lines  back,  that  the  finite  is  an  out-and- 
out  illusion,  that  it  simply  does  not  ex- 
ist. Such  a  mystic  pantheism  is  not 
unknown  in  the  history  of  philosophy, 
but  it  cannot  be  soberly  defended,  of 
course.  The  appearance  of  change  and 
finiteness  is  at  least  not  to  be  disputed, 
and  ^his  admission  carries  with  it  essen- 
tially the  whole  problem.  Calling  a  thing 
an  appearance  does  not  thereby  get  rid 
of  it  altogether,  and  reduce  it  to  bare 
nothingness;  and  so  long  as  appearances 
are  changing,  we  cannot  declare  that  we 
have  eliminated  all  change  whatever  from 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     47 

the  universe,  and  still  retain  any  mean- 
ing to  language.  But  the  word  "  appear- 
ance "  suggests  still  another  view  of  the 
matter,  which  is  much  more  definite  and 
comprehensible.  We  may  say,  that  is, 
that  the  known  qualities  of  things  are 
only  effects,  in  ns^  of  the  unknown  reality 
back  of  them,  ways  in  which  this  appears 
to  us,  and  that  they  are  subjective  there- 
fore, and  do  not  belong  at  all  to  the  real 
nature  of  that  which  appears.  In  the 
first  case  finite  things  were  declared  to 
be  absolutely  non-existent ;  now  they  are 
admitted  to  exist,  but  only  as  subjective 
appearances,  effects  of  a  separate  and 
unknown  real.  In  this  manner  we  at 
least  are  able  to  give  an  intelligible 
meaning  to  the  separation  of  the  unitary 
substance  from  the  finite  world  of  phe- 
nomena, and  can  give  each  its  due.  But 
whether  this  can  be  carried  out  success- 
fully or  not,  at  any  rate  it  is  not  to  be 
identified  with  monism,  without  further 
explanation    at    least.      For    evidently    it 


48     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

involves  not  only  something  which  ap- 
pears, but  also  something  to  which  it 
appears,  not  one  reality,  but  two;  the 
conflict  between  the  reality  and  finite 
existence  is  resolved  only  by  allowing 
the  latter  a  separate  subjective  existence, 
and  so  by  giving  up  the  doctrine  that 
God  is  all.  The  two  standpoints,  how- 
ever, are  continually  playing  more  or  less 
into  each  other's  hands,  and  they  will 
have  to  be  spoken  of  again. 

The  great  advantage  which  pantheism 
represents,  from  the  philosophic  stand- 
point, is  this,  that  it  substitutes  for  the 
very  difficult  conception  of  an  interaction 
between  separate  realities,  which  have  to 
be  brought  together  from  the  outside,  an 
interaction  of  parts  within  a  whole.  If  in 
this  way  we  make  the  whole  our  starting- 
point,  and  recognize  that  no  part  of  this 
has  any  rights  except  as  it  expresses  the 
working  of  the  whole,  we  can  see  more 
clearly  how  it  might  be  that,  in  this  mutual 
adjustment  of  elements,  one  change  should 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     49 

be  conditioned  by  another,  whereas  we 
could  not  comprehend  such  an  interaction 
when  we  started  with  the  elements  as  if 
they  were  complete  each  in  itself.  But 
when  we  come  to  ask  just  in  what  the! 
nature  of  this  unity  consists,  pantheism 
has  thus  far  failed  to  give  an  answer.  We 
may  turn,  then,  to  the  theistic  solution  of 
the  difficulty,  in  the  form  in  which  it  is 
most  commonly  to  be  met  with,  and  which, 
as  the  semi-official  philosophy  of  religion, 
is  familiar  to  most  of  us,  perhaps  as  the 
most  natural  way  of  regarding  the  world. 
There  is  a  slight  ambiguity  in  speaking  of 
this  as  theism,  for  it  is  in  reality  only  one 
form  of  it ;  accordingly  that  which  follows 
must  be  understood  to  be  directed,  not 
against  theism  as  such,  but  only  against 
the  special  form  in  which  it  leaves  us  with 
three  distinct  factors  of  existence,  —  mate- 
rial things,  conscious  beings,  and,  as  a  third 
reality  which  creates  and  directs  them, 
God.  There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  dis- 
cussion, which   still   continues   up  to   the 


50     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

present  day,  as  to  just  the  value  of  the 
arguments  which,  starting  from  the  con- 
ception of  the  world  as  it  comes  to  us  in 
ordinary  experience,  attempt  to  prove  that 
the  existence  of  a  creative  and  overruling 
Providence  is  an  indispensable  require- 
ment for  any  satisfactory  explanation  of 
things.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  call  atten- 
tion to  two  or  three  of  the  most  essential 
considerations  that  are  involved  in  this 
discussion,  without  attempting  to  treat  it 
in  very  great  detail.  In  one  point,  theism 
would  seem  to  be,  on  the  purely  philosophi- 
cal side,  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared 
with  the  pantheistic  theory,  in  that,  as 
finite  things  are  no  longer,  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  a  part  of  God,  we  are  led  back, 
apparently,  to  the  conception  of  an  in- 
teraction between  separate  things.  This 
difficulty  theism  seeks  to  obviate  by  sub- 
ordinating matter,  so  far  as  its  origin  goes 
at  least,  to  conscious  spirit,  and  by  regard- 
ing it  as  brought  into  existence  by  divine 
power.     And  by  this  means,  though  in  a 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     51 

less  obvious  way,  theism  might  perhaps 
still  retain,  after  all,  that  concept  of  the 
mutual  relation  of  parts  within  a  whole  to 
which  the  necessity  of  explaining  how  in- 
teraction is  possible  appeared  to  lead ;  for 
while  finite  things  are  not,  according  to 
it,  a  part  of  God's  being  directly,  they  are 
finally  dependent  upon  it,  and,  through 
the  medium  of  his  creative  power,  they 
come  within  the  unity  of  the  purposes 
which  make  up  his  life.  Of  course  the 
notion  of  creative  power,  directed  accord- 
ing to  conscious  purpose,  has  been  sub- 
stituted here  for  the  immediate  inclusion 
of  elements  within  a  whole  which  they 
directly  and  exclusively  constitute ;  still  it 
is  not  clear  that  the  unity  which  this  in- 
volves is  not  sufficient  to  make  the  idea 
of  interaction  intelligible.  But  when  we 
try  to  apply  this  to  the  material  world, 
there  are  peculiar  difficulties  in  the  way. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  get  any  idea  of 
the  rationale  of  the  process  by  which 
spirit  can  bring  into  existence  a  substance 


52     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

wholly  distinct  in  characteristics  from 
itself,  and  then  can  deal  with  it  after  it 
is  created,  though  of  course  it  might  be 
answered  that  we  cannot  expect  to  under- 
stand how  everything  is  done.  Perhaps 
not ;  but  the  whole  problem  is  not  un- 
answerable merely,  it  is  confusing :  how, 
for  instance,  are  we  to  understand  the 
relation  of  God  to  space  ?  Real  matter 
necessitates  real  space,  and  God  is  thus 
brought  into  relation  to  an  endless  spa- 
tial world  which  exists  outside  him,  and  so 
would  seem  to  furnish  him  all  the  difficul- 
ties which  infinite  space  presents  to  our 
thought.  But  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
fatal  difficulty  is  our  utter  inability  to  see 
what  this  supposed  matter  can  be  like, 
thus  set  up  in  business  for  itself.  Here 
we  trench  upon  another  field  of  philoso- 
phy, that  which  has  been  called  epistemol- 
ogy  ;  and  as  this  has  still  to  be  examined 
in  more  detail,  the  point  may  be  reserved 
for  the  following  chapter.  But  it  may  be 
said,  summarily,  that  the  difficulty  lies  in 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     53 

this.  We  cannot  conceive  of  matter  except 
in  terms  of  conscious  experience;  every 
quality  we  ascribe  to  it  is,  when  looked 
at  in  another  way,  a  conscious  quality,  a 
product  of  sensation  or  of  thought.  Con- 
sequently, when  we  are  asked  to  conceive 
what  the  nature  of  this  created  matter  is 
wholly  by  itself,  apart  from  consciousness, 
we  are  set  upon  an  impossible  task.^ 

As  this  consideration  introduces  us  to 
the  province  of  epistemology,  so  the  sec- 
ond difficulty  to  be  mentioned  involves 
the  problem  of  cosmology.  And  here 
we  have  to  face  an  extremely  vital  ques- 
tion, which  concerns  the  entire  existence 
of  meaning,  or  purpose,  in  the  world. 
Theism,  of  course,  maintains  that  the 
world  is  governed  by  intelligence,  and  in 
general  it  adduces  two  main  arguments 
to  support  its  view.  The  first  is  the  more 
abstract  one,  and  is  based  on  the  idea  of 
causation.  It  is  said  that,  by  a  necessity 
of  reason,  every  event  that  takes  place  in 


54     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

the  world  must  be  traced  back  to  some 
preceding  cause;  but  this,  while  it  may 
account  well  enough  for  each  event  in 
particular,  will  evidently  not  account  for 
the  world  as  a  whole.  For  we  never  are 
able  in  this  way  to  get  to  any  first  cause, 
but  are  driven  back  and  back  continually 
in  an  endless  series.  Since,  however, 
such  an  infinite  series  is  unthinkable,  we 
must  admit  at  some  point  an  absolute  first 
cause,  which  is  itself  uncaused.  That  this 
cause  is  intelligent,  again,  is  sought  to  be 
proved  by  the  second  argument,  which 
points  out  the  actual  evidences  of  design 
in  the  universe.  Such  instances  of  design 
—  the  eye  made  for  seeing,  the  ear  for 
hearing,  and  the  like — are  perfectly  famil- 
iar to  all,  and  certainly  they  have  a  good 
deal  of  popular  evidence  in  their  favor. 
As  far  as  the  first  of  these  arguments 
is  concerned,  it  is  enough  to  suggest  two 
or  three  objections  which  have  been 
brought  against  it.  It  is  a  doubtful  piece 
of  logic  to  argue  from  the  absolute  neces- 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     55 

sity  of  a  cause  in  every  case,  to  the  ex- 
istence of  an  absolute  beginning,  which 
does  not  need  a  cause ;  nor  can  we  quite 
safely  get  the  infinite  condusion  with 
which  we  bring  up,  out  of  premises 
which  are  strictly  finite.  Furthermore,  it 
is  always  open,  in  a  case  where  we  are 
arguing  on  the  basis  of  an  abstract  truth 
like  the  law  of  causation,  to  ask  what 
proof  we  have  of  the  absolute  necessity 
of  .our  law,  upon  which  everything  de- 
pends ;  and  to  answer  this  we  have  either 
to  enter  on  a  particularly  abstruse  meta- 
physical inquiry,  or  else  fall  back  on  the 
appeal  to  self-evidence,  which,  as  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy  has  shown  again  and 
again,  is  very  likely  to  be  an  appeal  to 
custom  and  tradition.  But  the  point 
which  is  especially  to  be  emphasized  is 
this,  —  and  it  applies  to  both  arguments 
alike,  —  that  in  so  far  as,  on  this  show- 
ing, intelligence  enters  in,  it  is  in  the 
form  of  a  distinct  and  supplementary 
power.     There  are  a   certain    number   of 


56     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

facts  that  can  be  explained  by  mechan- 
ism, by  natural  laws;  teleology  appears 
only  where  mechanism  breaks  down.  It 
is  just  as  in  the  case  of  human  workman- 
ship :  the  tree  is  a  natural  process,  ex- 
plainable by  its  own  laws,  but  when  the 
carpenter  begins  to  work  upon  the  tree, 
a  new  factor  is  introduced  which,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  laws  which  govern 
the  tree's  growth,  is  not  natural  at  all.  A 
very  similar  statement  can  be  made  about 
the  argument  from  cause :  the  string  of 
events  is  quite  explainable  on  natural 
grounds  until  we  reach  the  end,  and  then 
a  wholly  new  power  is  appealed  to,  which 
cannot  be  stated  in  scientific  terms. 

Now  in  so  far  as  the  dispute  between 
the  mechanical  and  the  teleological  ex- 
planation of  the  world  is  based  upon  this 
idea,  that  some  things  can  be  explained 
in  terms  of  mechanism,  i.e.^  in  the  large 
sense,  of  natural  law,  while  others  de- 
mand a  higher  explanation,  a  direct  ap- 
peal to  purpose  or  design,  it  is  simply  a 


Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism     57 

fact  of  history  that  the  principle  of  tele- 
ology has  tended  to  be  more  and  more 
displaced  by  the  other.  Science  has 
steadily  proceeded  on  the  theory  that 
for  everything  a  natural  explanation  is 
to  be  looked  for,  in  terms  of  physical 
law;  and  its  justification  has  been  in  its 
success.  One  sphere  after  another  has 
been  brought  under  the  sway  of  scientific 
method,  and  since  the  last  great  step  in 
advance,  the  establishment  of  the  princi- 
ple of  evolution,  there  are  few  scientists 
who  do  not  have  a  well-earned  confidence 
that,  in  the  end,  no  phenomenon  in  the 
universe  will  remain  outside  the  sphere 
of  universal  law.  Of  course  this  cannot 
be  demonstrated  in  any  strict  logical 
sense,  and  the  scientist  who  tried  to  do 
that  would  misunderstand  his  business. 
It  is,  however,  a  well-grounded  convic- 
tion, based  on  the  whole  history  of  sci- 
ence; and  the  attempt  to  dispute  it  is 
coming  more  and  more  to  be  felt  as  a 
difficult,  if  not  a  desperate,  undertaking. 


58     Dualism,  Pantheism,  and  Theism 

In  so  far  as  teleology  means  a  breaking 
into  what  would  otherwise  have  been 
the  natural  order  of  events,  by  a  separate 
and  transcendent  power,  whose  workings 
cannot  be  reduced  to  strictly  scientific 
formulae,  it  has  the  whole  weight  of  sci- 
entific achievement  against  it.  And  if, 
as  we  said  at.  starting,  philosophy  is  an 
attempt,  not  to  reason  out  a  scheme  of 
the  universe  on  the  basis  of  certain  ab- 
stract truths,  but  to  account  for  the  facts 
of  life  in  their  entirety,  then  no  philoso- 
phy can  fail  to  recognize  the  great  body 
of  facts  which  science  represents,  and 
still  perform  its  function.  We  must 
either  drop  the  notion  of  end  altogether, 
or  else  we  must  adopt  some  new  concep- 
tion of  what  end,  or  design,  means,  and 
of  how  it  works. 


MATERIALISM   AND   SUB- 
JECTIVE  IDEALISM 


MATERIALISM    AND    SUB- 
JECTIVE   IDEALISM 

(N  the  preceding  chapter  we  had 
to  consider  how  the  attempt  to 
get  at  a  conception  which  shall 
explain  things  as  a  unity,  gives  rise  to 
the  categories  of  substance  and  of  soul, 
which,  however,  prove,  when  they  are 
examined,  to  be  much  too  abstract  and 
rigid  to  perform  their  office  with  any 
degree  of  success.  The  necessity,  again, 
of  bringing  the  two  sets  of  facts  which 
these  concepts  represent  themselves  into 
connection,  revealed  other  difficulties,  and 
forced  us  to  the  recognition  that  interac- 
tion, not  only  between  unlike  things,  but 
between  any  two  things  at  all,  requires 
the  conception  of  a  larger  unity  in  which 
the  interacting  things  exist,  not  indepen- 

6i 


62     Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

dently,  but  as  in  some  way  elements. 
Pantheism  took  up  this  conception  of 
finite  things  as  elements  within  a  whole, 
but  the  unity  which  it  supplied  turned 
out  to  be  abstract  and  verbal  merely. 
Theism  furnished  a  somewhat  more  defi- 
nite conception,  but  when  we  came  to 
consider  the  notion  of  created  matter 
with  greater  care,  it  presented  serious 
difificulties,  while  in  so  far  as  theism  pos- 
tulates the  presence  of  intelligence  or 
design  in  the  universe,  it  seemed  to  con- 
flict with  the  results  of  scientific  method. 
Accordingly,  it  seemed  necessary  either 
to  drop  the  conception  of  design  alto- 
gether, or  else  conceive  of  its  relation  to 
mechanism  in  some  more  organic  way. 

The  first  of  these  alternatives  is  adopted 
by  a  philosophy  which,  by  reason  of  its 
great  apparent  simplicity,  and  of  the 
support  which  it  appears  to  receive  from 
the  most  tangible  and  seemingly  self- 
evident  facts  of  human  experience,  those 
with  which  science  deals,  has  always  ex- 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    6} 

erted  an  extraordinary  attraction  on  a 
certain  type  of  mind.  This  is  the  philo- 
sophical attitude  of  Materialism.  The 
materialist  would,  indeed,  usually  object 
to  having  himself  called  a  philosopher. 
He  rather  prides  himself  on  sticking  to 
obvious  and  self-evident  facts,  as  opposed 
to  the  oversubtilty  of  theorists  who  are 
trying  somehow  to  get  behind  the  facts, 
and  to  exalt  above  them  figments  of  their 
own  creation.  But  it  is  evident  that,  in 
spite  of  this,  the  materialist  is  a  philos- 
opher without  his  knowing  it.  He  is 
taking  one  attitude  towards  the  world 
out  of  a  number  which  are  possible  —  the 
most  obvious  and  natural  attitude,  it  may 
perhaps  be,  but  at  least  not  the  only 
conceivable  one.  And  the  fact,  if  it  be 
a  fact,  that  it  is  the  first  standpoint  that 
one  tends  to  adopt  when  he  begins  to 
think  about  reality,  certainly  is  not  enough 
to  exempt  the  position  from  examination 
and  criticism :  that  is  a  stand  which  the 
scientist  of  all  men  could  least  afford  to 


64    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

take,  for  he  cannot  advance  a  step  with- 
out overturning  obvious  and  received 
opinions.  Materialism  is,  therefore,  by 
no  means  a  self-evident  theory,  but  re- 
quires definite  proof. 

Now  the  materialist  attempts  to  give 
this  proof,  not  by  examining  his  presup- 
positions, but  by  appealing  to  the  ad- 
mitted facts  of  science :  the  latter 
constitutes  the  strength,  the  former  the 
weakness  of  his  position.  For  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  in  so  far  as  material- 
ism is  a  mere  statement  of  scientific 
method,  a  recognition  of  the  necessity  of 
bringing  everything  under  natural  law, 
it  has  been  of  the  greatest  value  in  the 
history  of  thought.  The  scientist  in  his 
practical  procedure,  in  so  far  as  he  is 
merely  a  scientist,  is  necessarily  a  mate- 
rialist; he  has  no  court  of  appeal  except 
to  facts  which  reach  him  through  the 
senses ;  he  has  no  laws  or  forces  which 
he  is  justified  in  calling  to  his  aid  except 
those    which    are    expressed    in    natural 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    65 

phenomena.  But  the  scientist  as  such 
is  not  pretending  to  give  a  final  account 
of  the  world,  but  only  of  the  way  in 
which  a  certain  particular  group  of  phe- 
nomena acts.  The  materialist,  as  the  up- 
holder of  a  philosophical  theory,  now  takes 
these  laws  which  the  scientist  discovers, 
and  expressly  puts  them  forward,  not 
simply  as  true,  but  as  the  whole  of  truth, 
its  final  statement.  He  shows  how  one 
by  one  those  facts  which  men  had  thought 
to  be  anomalous,  and  to  require  the 
working  of  a  higher  power  to  account 
for  them,  have  been  explained  without 
recourse  to  any  such  hypothesis,  until 
now,  if  we  grant  the  existence  of  parti- 
cles of  matter  which  are  moving  in  rela- 
tion to  one  another  with  velocities  that 
can  be  reduced  to  an  exact  quantitative 
expression,  we  have  all  the  data  neces- 
sary to  account  for  the  most  complicated 
events.  Of  course  literally  this  is  not 
yet  true,  but  every  year  makes  it  more 
nearly   true,    and   the    scientist   has   faith 


66    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

to  believe  that  conceivably  he  might  get 
a  formula  which,  if  he  could  know  the 
exact  state  of  the  world  at  any  one  mo- 
ment, would  enable  him  to  forecast  the 
entire  future  course  of  events  with  mathe- 
matical certainty,  since  by  the  subjection 
of  every  particle  of  matter  to  the  unde- 
viating  laws  of  mechanical  interaction, 
the  future  depends  upon  the  past  with 
the  inevitableness  of  fate.  The  great 
stumbling-block  which  was  formerly  sup- 
posed to  lie  in  the  way  of  such  an  ex- 
planation, in  the  marvellous  adaptations 
that  meet  us  in  organic  life,  has  been  re- 
moved by  the  theory  of  evolution.  If, 
so  the  materialist  thinks,  we  admit  the 
action  of  the  environment  in  selecting 
out  from  a  multitude  of  minute  and  inde- 
terminate variations,  those  which  are  use- 
ful to  the  organism,  through  the  process 
of  exterminating  such  individuals  as  fail 
to  possess  these,  and  so  are  handicapped 
in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  if  in 
addition  we  grant  the  influence  of  hered- 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    67 

ity  in  transmitting  these  favorable  varia- 
tions by  a  cumulative  process,  we  are  in 
a  position  to  explain  all  the  adaptations 
of  organic  structure,  without  the  neces- 
sity of  appealing  to  intelligence.  Since 
therefore,  as  he  supposes,  the  existence 
of  matter  in  motion  is  an  undoubted  fact, 
the  hypothesis  of  a  God,  or  of  intelli- 
gence, is  no  longer  needed  by  him,  and 
must  simply  be  allowed  to  drop  away.  It 
is  the  product  of  a  prescientific  age, 
formulated  to  explain  facts  that  could 
not  otherwise  be  accounted  for;  now  that 
we  can  explain  the  facts  without  going 
outside  material  forces  whose  existence 
every  one  admits,  the  hypothesis  ceases 
even  to  be  plausible. 

But  what  are  we  to  say  of  those  facts 
which  apparently  are  so  unlike  material 
processes,  the  facts  of  consciousness } 
These  also,  says  the  materialist,  can  be 
accounted  for  as  the  results  of  material 
conditions ;  and  he  proceeds  to  bring  for- 
ward   the    numerous    indications    of    the 


6S    f^aterialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

close  and  immediate  connection  between 
the  conscious  life  and  the  material  body. 
The  facts  are  known  to  every  one,  and 
are  sufficiently  striking.  Consciousness 
only  makes  its  appearance  when  the  body 
and  the  brain  have  reached  a  certain 
stage  of  development ;  it-  varies  with  the 
physical  condition  of  the  body,  with  health 
and  sickness,  sleep  and  waking,  and  with 
all  sorts  of  peculiarities  of  structure ;  and, 
finally,  when  the  organic  structure  of  the 
body  goes  to  pieces,  consciousness  straight- 
way disappears.  Any  book  on  psychology 
or  physiology  will  furnish  a  multitude  of 
examples,  and  every  day  the  tendency  is 
growing  stronger  in  the  direction  of  find- 
ing a  physical  process  for  every  conscious 
one,  and  of  making  this  series  of  nervous 
changes  on  the  physical  side  a  continu- 
ous chain,  complete  within  itself,  which 
finds  its  sufficient  explanation  without 
going  outside  the  physical  realm.  Con- 
sciousness, then,  says  the  materialist,  must 
be  looked  on  as  merely  a   product,  or   a 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    69 

function,  of  matter,,  a  secretion  of  the 
brain  as  bile  is  a  secretion  of  the  liver; 
it  is  a  mere  transitory  phase  of  existence, 
entirely  unreal  as  compared  with  the  per- 
manent ground  from  which  it  springs. 

And  yet  these  arguments,  apparently 
so  strong,  fall  away  on  the  most  cas- 
uar  examination  of  their  presuppositions. 
What  is  it,  then,  that  the  materialist  means 
by  consciousness?  Often  he  appears  to 
mean  that  consciousness  itself  is  matter. 
But  if  he  means  this,  he  simply  .does  not 
understand  what  he  is  saying.  For  if  he 
understands  by  matter  what  other  people 
do,  something  which  has  the  qualities  of 
shape,  and  impenetrability,  and  movement 
in  space,  then  a  sensation  or  a  feeling 
does  not  possess  these  qualities,  and  no 
amount  of  verbal  identification  can  make 
them  do  so.  What  he  really  has  to  mean 
when  he  is  pressed  down  to  it  is,  that 
consciousness  is  a  product  of  matter,  but 
a  product  which  is  different  in  nature 
from  the    source   from  which   it   springs. 


70    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

But  then  the  analogies  which  he  uses  to 
express  the  relation  no  longer  will  apply. 
A  product  of  material  processes,  in  the 
sense  in  which  bile  is  a  product  of  the 
liver,  is  itself  matter;  a  function  of  such 
processes,  the  function,  say,  of  the  heart, 
involves  nothing  but  the  heart  itself  at 
work,  and  performing  a  certain  part  in 
the  economy  of  the  organic  system.  Con- 
sciousness is  evidently  not  represented 
truly  by  either  of  these  terms,  and  the 
materialist's  explanation,  consequently,  will 
not  apply.  He  has  staked  everything  on 
his  ability  to  reduce  the  whole  of  exist- 
ence to  terms  of  matter  and  motion,  and 
here  is  an  element  of  existence  which 
remains  outside  his  scheme.  All  that  is 
left  for  him  to  do  is  to  say  that  the  po- 
tencies of  matter  are  wholly  beyond  our 
power  to  set  a  limit  to,  and  that  therefore 
among  them  there  may  be  the  possibility 
of  producing  a  form  of  reality  apparently 
so  unlike  itself  as  consciousness  is.  But 
this  is  to  leave  the  field  of  science,  and 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism     71 

to  do  just  what  the  materialist  blames  the 
theist  for  doing,  forsake  a  reasoned  ex- 
planation, and  fall  back  on  an  appeal  to 
a  mysterious  and  unknown  power.  The 
fact  remains  that  consciousness  is  some- 
thing which  falls  beyond  the  range  of 
those  events  which  are  satisfactorily  ac- 
counted for  as  movements  of  matter,  and 
that  it  apparently  does  not  enter  in 
at  all  to  that  system  of  mathematically 
equivalent  transformations  of  energy 
which  forms  the  basis  of  a  physical  ex- 
planation. Since,  therefore,  on  the  one 
hand,  it  refuses  to  be  reduced  to  matter 
in  motion,  and  cannot,  on  the  other  hand, 
be  pushed  aside  as  a  sheer  illusion,  some 
other  category  than  that  of  matter  will 
have  to  be  adopted  as  our  ultimate  one, 
which  is  broad  enough  to  take  conscious- 
ness in. 

It  might  be  well,  also,  to  point  out 
here  a  disability  under  which  materialism 
lies  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of  inter- 
action.    It  was  seen  in  the   last   chapter 


72    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

that,  if  we  start  with  a  lot  of  separate 
things,  the  problem  of  their  action  on 
one  another  becomes  very  difficult  to 
solve;  and  that  it  is  only  by  starting  at 
the  other  end,  and  taking  the  whole,  not 
the  separate  parts,  as  our  primary  data, 
that  we  begin  to  get  a  basis  for  under- 
standing it.  But  materialism  does  not 
at  all  lend  itself  to  this  conception  which 
we  seem  to  require  if  interaction  is  to  be 
explained ;  on  the  contrary,  the  separation 
of  particles  in  space  which  it  presupposes 
is  the  very  essence  of  exclusiveness,  and 
there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  way  of 
thinking  of  them  as  a  whole,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  form  a  mere  aggregate,  which 
is  not  an  organic  unity,  nor  indeed  a  unity 
at  all,  except  as  it  is  one  for  some  perceiv- 
ing mind.  It  is  true  we  try  to  get  them 
into  some  sort  of  connection  by  using  the 
idea  of  force  as  a  uniting  bond,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  explain  what  we  are  to 
understand  by  this.  If  force  is  regarded 
as   an   immaterial   bond,   no  one  can  tell 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    73 

what  we  mean  by  such  a  bond,  which 
gathers  up  solid  particles  of  matter  and 
forms  them  into  a  unity,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  inconsistency  of  a  materialist's  appeal- 
ing to  the  immaterial ;  and  if  force  is  itself 
another  material  something,  it  will  serve 
no  purpose  in  uniting  matter,  for  it  has 
itself  to  be  brought  into  unity  with  matter. 
But  there  is  another  objection  to  the  posi- 
tion of  the  materialist  which  by  itself,  as 
soon  as  one  comes  to  understand  it,  is 
entirely  conclusive;  and  it  is  largely  due 
to  this  that,  in  spite  of  the  great  popular 
vogue  of  materialistic  theories,  it  is  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  to  point  out  a  single 
thinker  of  any  real  importance  in  modern 
times  who  has  been  ready  to  adopt  it  in 
its  simplicity.  There  are  two  ways  in 
which  the  objection  may  be  put.  If  we 
ask  what  it  is  we  know  about  matter,  we 
discover  that  all  our  knowledge  comes  to 
us  through  the  senses.  There  is  literally 
no  quality  which  we  attribute  to  it,  color, 
form,    hardness,    elasticity,   which    is   not 


74    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

based  directly  upon  a  sense  quality,  and 
which  cannot,  when  looked  at  from  an- 
other standpoint,  be  put  in  terms  of  this. 
If,  that  is  to  say,  matter  is  regarded  as 
something  distinct  from  consciousness,  we 
yet  have  to  admit  that  it  is  only  through 
the  medium  of  consciousness  that  we  know 
anything  about  matter,  and  that  it  is  only 
in  terms  of  conscious  sensation  that  we 
can  describe  it.  Consciousness  is,  for  us, 
the  ultimate.  Instead  of  its  being  so, 
then,  as  the  materialist  assumes,  that 
matter  is  that  which  is  given  originally 
and  primarily,  and  about  which  there  can 
be  no  reasonable  doubt,  it  may  be  argued 
that  just  the  opposite  is  true.  And  we 
therefore  have  the  double  difficulty:  that 
what  we  were  wishing  to  take  as  a  mere 
transitory  product  of  matter  is  the  abso- 
lute presupposition  of  the  existence  of 
matter,  so  far  as  our  experience  is  con- 
cerned; and  that  every  quality  which  we 
ascribe  to  matter  is,  it  would  seem,  after 
all  only  the  same  thing  that  we  otherwise 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    75 

know  as  a  sensation,  so  that  when  we  set 
aside  this  content,  nothing  whatever  is  left. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  the  same 
essential  difficulty  may  be  put.  The  real 
world  of  the  modern  materialist,  at  least, 
is  not  the  actual  world  which  we  see 
when  we  look  about  us,  but  a  highly 
abstract  world  of  moving  atoms,  follow- 
ing fixed  laws,  a  world  that  never  can 
appear  to  our  actual  bodily  senses,  though 
it  is  based  upon  them.  In  other  words, 
it  is  a  thought  world,  something  which, 
from  its  hypothetical  atoms  and  ether,  to 
the  laws  which  they  follow  (what  can 
the  material  existence  of  a  law  mean.-*), 
is  through  and  through  the  product  of 
thought.  But  thought  is  the  work  of 
intelligence,  of  spirit,  and  can  no  more 
be  caught  and  fossilized  into  an  unspirit- 
ual  existence  than,  outside  of  Wonder- 
land, the  grin  can  remain  behind  after 
the  cat  has  disappeared. 

We  thus  have  reached  the  surprising 
result,    that    while    we    started    with    the 


76    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

supposition  that  nothing  exists  but  mat- 
ter, we  have  suddenly  found  ourselves 
brought  up  at  the  totally  opposite  con- 
clusion, that  nothing  exists  but  mind; 
from  Materialism  we  have  passed  to 
Idealism.  The  considerations  which  have 
just  been  mentioned  suggest,  indeed,  two 
somewhat  different  forms  of  idealistic 
theory,  but  for  the  present  we  may 
confine  ourselves  to  that  more  obvious 
form  which  goes  by  the  name  of  sub- 
jective idealism,  and  the  arguments  for 
which  we  have  already  indicated.  All 
that  we  can  experience  immediately,  it 
is  said,  is  our  own  states  of  conscious- 
ness; matter,  as  something  which  exists 
beyond  consciousness,  is  simply  an  in- 
ference which  is  built  upon  the  data 
of  these  sensations.  It  seems,  indeed, 
almost  self-evident  that  we  can  ex- 
perience directly  nothing  which  is  not 
our  experience;  and  if  matter  has  also 
an  existence  of  its  own,  there  must  be 
some    bridge    required    to    get   us    to    it 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    77 

which  is  not  needed  in  the  case  of  our 
own  conscious  life.  If,  therefore,  matter 
can  be  entirely  reduced  to  terms  of  our 
sensations,  which  are  the  indubitable  facts 
whose  existence  alone  is  given  directly, 
and  if  the  concept  of  matter,  as  some- 
thing opposed  to  consciousness,  is  now 
deprived  of  all  content  except  a  conscious 
content,  and  so  we  are  left  with  no  way 
of  conceiving  what  it  can  be  by  itself, 
why  should  we  not  throw  matter  over- 
board entirely,  and  content  ourselves  with 
the  only  facts  which  can  be  verified  ? 
It  is,  indeed,  generally  agreed  that  what 
are  called  the  secondary  qualities  of  mat- 
ter—  color,  sound,  smell,  and  the  like  — 
are  thus  subjective  affections  of  our  own ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  stop  here,  for  the 
same  arguments  apply  with  precisely  the 
same  force  to  the  so-called  primary 
qualities  as  well,  which  are  popularly 
supposed  to  belong  to  matter  in  itself, 
—  extension,  i.e.y  and  impenetrability. 
These    also    certainly    are    made   known 


7S    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

to  us  through  sense  perception;  why, 
then,  should  we  suppose  that  they  have 
any  existence  except  as  they  are  sensibly 
perceived,  any  more  than  the  color  or  fra- 
grance of  the  rose  exists  when  no  one 
is  there  to  experience  it  ?  —  an  idea  which 
science  has  long  ago  exploded.  Indeed, 
what  possible  conception  can  we  form  of 
a  sense  quality  which  has  an  existence 
when  it  is  not  perceived  ?  If  we  hold 
to  the  fact  that  all  our  supposed  know- 
ledge of  the  qualities  of  matter  comes  to 
us  through  sensation,  can  we  still  retain 
the  belief  that  these  sense  qualities  give 
us  information  about  a  material  some- 
thing beyond  themselves,  unless  we  admit 
the  apparent  contradiction  that  a  sensa- 
tion may  resemble  that  of  which  it  is  an 
essential  determination  that  it  is  not  a 
sensation  ?  We  have  already  seen  that 
the  substance  which  underlies  what  we 
call  qualities  of  an  objective  thing  is 
confessedly  beyond  our  knowledge,  and 
therefore    utterly   useless.     If,  then,  it  is 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    79 

inconceivable  in  itself,  and  of  no  account 
in  explaining  other  things,  why  not  get 
rid  of  it  altogether  ?  Matter,  accordingly, 
would  not  exist,  but  only  selves,  with  a 
succession  of  conscious  states,  or  sensa- 
tions. 

Most  probably  our  first  tendency  on 
hearing  an  argument  of  this  sort  is  to 
follow  the  illustrious  example  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  and  proceed  to  kick  a  post,  or 
do  something  equally  violent,  in  order 
to  prove  irrefutably  that  solid  matter  can- 
not be  so  easily  gotten  rid  of.  But  the 
argument,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  does  not 
by  any  means  imply  that  because  what 
we  call  matter  is  only  our  own  sensa- 
tions, we  can  therefore  have  at  any  time 
any  sensation  we  please;  and  consequently 
the  fact  that  the  particular  kind  of  sen- 
sation which  we  can  have  depends  on 
conditions  to  a  large  extent  independent 
of  our  own  arbitrary  will,  is  no  argu- 
ment against  the  theory.  In  Berkeley, 
who  represents    the  classic  expression  of 


80    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

this  type  of  idealism,  there  is  a  perfectly 
clear  recognition  of  this  element  of  ex- 
perience, and  it  is  even  made  an  essen- 
tial part  of  his  theory.  Evidently  the 
string  of  sensations  of  which  each  of  us 
is  conscious,  is  not  sufficient  to  account 
satisfactorily  for  itself;  but  instead  of 
falling  back  on  a  conception  like  that  of 
matter,  which  is  unthinkable  and  contra- 
dictory, Berkeley  appeals  to  the  idea  of 
God.  It  is  essential,  that  is,  to  have 
some  ulterior  reality  in  order  to  account 
for  the  sensations  in  oneself;  and  by 
thinking  of  this  reality  as  a  conscious 
being,  we  avoid  the  necessity  of  postulat- 
ing any  other  kind  of  existence  than  the 
one  whose  possibility  we  have  already 
guaranteed  in  our  own  self-knowledge. 
It  is  God's  power,  then,  which  causes 
our  sensations  to  be  arranged  in  the 
particular  order  which  they  follow.  That 
the  sensation  of  stretching  forth  the  arm 
is  followed  by  a  sensation  of  pressure,  is 
not   due   to   the    existence   of    an    actual 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    81 

object  out  in  space,  but  to  the  fact  that 
God  has  made  it  necessary  for  these  two 
sensations  to  go  together.  The  content, 
then,  of  the  external  world  is  due  to  our 
sensations;  but  the  order  and  necessary 
connection  which  it  shows  depend  upon 
the  immediate  will  of  God. 

Perhaps  no  theory  in  the  history  of 
speculation  which  is  on  the  face  of  it  so 
paradoxical,  and  so  subversive  of  ordinary 
common-sense  opinions,  has  had  so  great 
an  influence  as  Bishop  Berkeley's  sub- 
jective idealism.  Even  men  who  have 
been  far  from  accepting  its  conclusions 
have  pronounced  its  reasoning  unanswer- 
able, and  in  general  its  opponents  have 
made  but  little  attempt  to  point  out 
wherein  the  fallacy  consists,  and  have 
contented  themselves  with  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  absurdities,  practical  and  other- 
wise, to  which,  if  adopted,  it  will  lead. 
In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  consider 
merely  this  negative  side,  leaving  to  an- 
other connection  the  attempt  to  show  more 


82    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

positively  the  point  at  which  the  argument 
for  subjective  idealism  goes  astray.  It 
may  be  said,  in  the  first  place,  that 
whether  the  theory  is  true  or  not,  it  is 
at  any  rate  so  far  principally  destructive, 
and  fails  to  give  any  clear  explanation  of 
the  positive  fact  of  experience  with  which 
it  started.  That  fact  was  the  apparent 
difference  between  material  things  and 
mental  states.  Granting  that  the  differ- 
ence is  only  apparent,  .yet  a  complete 
theory  must  at  least  account  for  the  per- 
sistency of  the  illusion.  The  fact,  how- 
ever, that  has  been  of  most  weight  in 
recent  times  in  making  men -unwilling  to 
accept  Berkeleyanism,  in  spite  of  its  theo- 
retical clearness  and  attractiveness,  is 
probably  this,  that  it  seems  to  be  destruc- 
tive of  all  that  vast  framework  of  scientific 
achievement  which  is  the  most  character- 
istic product  of  our  century.  If  sensations 
are  produced  directly  by  the  power  of 
God,  then  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  func- 
tion is  left  for  all  the  intricate  machinery 


Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism    83 

of  forces  and  molecular  structures  by 
which  science  explains  the  phenomenal 
world.  And  yet  the  work  of  science  can- 
not be  simply  thrust  aside ;  and  when  it 
comes  to  choosing  between  the  solid  and 
lasting  results  which  it  has  won,  and  what 
on  the  other  hand  is  apt  to  seem  a  specu- 
lative subtilty,  sober  common  sense  is 
likely  to  prefer  the  former.  Since,  how- 
ever, in  a  speculative  way,  the  arguments 
for  idealism  cannot  be  overthrown,  the 
result  has  frequently  been  a  curious  waver- 
ing between  two  extremes,  each  of  which 
is  held  according  to  the  needs  of  the 
moment,  but  each  of  which  is  in  reality 
destructive  of  the  other.  A  scientific  ex- 
planation of  sensation  is  sought  in  the 
function  of  the  nervous  system,  which  in 
this  instance  is  taken  as  a  reality  that 
must  exist  before  sensation  can  come  into 
being.  But  then,  again,  when  we  ask  how 
this  nervous  system  is  known,  it  is  ad- 
mitted that  it  is  nothing  but  a  lot  of  sen- 
sations or  possible  sensations.     Evidently, 


84    Materialism  and  Subjective  Idealism 

then,  unless  we  are  to  move  in  an  eternal 
circle,  we  must  consider  more  carefully  the 
process  by  which  these  contradictory  con- 
clusions have  been  reached. 


RATIONALISM  AND   SENSA- 
TIONALISM 


RATIONALISM  AND   SENSA- 
TIONALISM 

HEN  the  difficulties  which 
centre  about  fhe  attempt  to 
combine  two  quite  different 
kinds  of  reality  in  a  unitary  world  be- 
come evident,  the  most  obvious  way  out 
of  them  is  by  trying  to  take  one  of  the 
two  things  which  have  to  be  united  as 
alone  representing  reality,  and  then  to 
reduce  the  other  to  it.  This  attempt  we 
have  had  to  consider  in  the  last  chapter, 
and  so  far  it  has  not  proved  successful. 
Materialism  represents  a  real  advance  in 
scientific  method,  but  fails  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  an  ultimate  theory.  If 
we  take  matter  as  the  only  real  thing, 
then  consciousness  refuses  to  be  reduced 
87 


8S      Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

to  it,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  the 
concept  of  matter  is  not  a  concept  of 
unity,  but  of  plurality.  When  we  try, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  reduce  matter  to 
mind,  the  process  is  much  more  simple; 
but  we  have  to  face  the  result  that  appar- 
ently we  have  thrown  overboard  in  the 
operation  a  great  number  of  things  which 
we  can  hardly  afford  to  lose.  If  we  ex- 
amine the  point  to  which  we  have  thus 
been  led,  it  will  be  evident  that  the  stress 
of  the  problem  has  shifted  from  the  field 
of  ontology  or  cosmology,  to  that  of  episte- 
mology.  Before  we  can  proceed  further 
in  determining  what  the  nature  of  reality 
is,  it  seems  that  we  shall  have  to  take 
account  more  minutely  and  carefully  than 
we  have  done  so  far  of  the  process  of 
knowledge  itself,  for  in  the  case  of  every- 
thing that  is  known,  the  act  of  knowing 
is  of  course  always  implied.  In  Berkeley's 
case,  it  is  true,  the  ontological  interest  is 
still  uppermost.  Berkeley  is  interested 
primarily  to  prove  that  a  certain  supposed 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      89 

kind  of  reality,  matter,  does  not,  in  point 
of  fact,  exist  in  the  way  we  are  inclined 
to  think  it  does ;  and  it  is  only  as  a  way 
of  approach  to  this  that  he  enters  into 
an  examination  of  the  conditions  involved 
in  a  knowledge  of  matter.  Epistemology 
is  still  an  incident,  then,  not  an  end  in 
itself.  But  with  Berkeley's  great  succes- 
sor, Hume,  the  purely  epistemological  in- 
quiry begins  to  stand  more  by  itself,  and 
centred  about  it  there  commences  a  brill- 
iant philosophical  development,  which  has 
proved  of  decisive  importance  for  modern 
thinking. 

If  we  examine  the  problem  of  episte- 
mology more  closely,  we  shall  find  that 
there  are  two  pretty  distinct  questions 
involved,  which  are  not  always  clearly 
distinguished,  but  which,  in  reality,  need 
to  be  treated  separately.  First  there  is 
the  question  as  to  what  is  the  source  or 
medium  of  knowledge ;  whether,  as  one 
school  holds,  it  is  given  through  sensa- 
tion, or  whether   there   is,  besides   sensa- 


90      Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

tion,  a  rational  faculty  of  thought  which 
is  a  revealer  of  truth.  So  far  the  ques- 
tion is  one  simply  of  the  process  of 
knowing,  which  is  a  process  within  ex- 
perience, within  oiir  experience,  as  we 
should  be  apt  to  say.  But  also  we  are 
disposed  to  think  that  knowledge  is  al- 
ways a  knowledge  of  sometfmig^  and  that 
this  something  which  is  known  is  a  quite 
distinct  existence  from  the  process  of 
knowing  it.  The  latter  is  what  we  call  an 
experience  of  ours,  while  the  former  is 
not  such  an  experience ;  it  exists  some- 
how for  itself,  and  our  experience,  whether 
it  is  thought  of  as  sensational  or  as  ra- 
tional, only  copies  or  represents  it.  In 
addition,  therefore,  to  the  former  ques- 
tion. What  is  the  nature,  psychologically, 
of  the  knowing  process  as  an  immediate 
part  of  our  experience  ?  we  also  need  to 
ask,  How  can  this  immediate  experience, 
sensation  or  what  not,  give  us  information 
of  something  that  exists  independently 
of  it.!*    how  is  it  possible   to  bridge    over 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      91 

the  gap  between  the  fact  of  experience 
which  we  get  directly,  and  that  which  it 
represents,  if  the  latter  is,  in  its  own 
proper  existence,  forever  beyond  our 
circle  of  experience,  and  so  can  only  be, 
it  would  seem,  an  object  of  inference? 
This  last  problem  is  involved  in  Berke- 
ley's constant  assumption  of  other  selves 
and  of  God,  whose  existence  we  can  of 
course  not  immediately  experience,  but  a 
knowledge  of  whom  is  implicitly  assumed 
as  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
it  comes  to  the  external  world,  Berkeley 
denies  this  tran subjective  reference;  he 
refuses  to  accept  the  common  belief  that 
sensations,  or  at  least  some  of  them,  are 
copies  of  a  reality  beyond,  and  holds 
that  all  we  can  know  is  the  sensation 
itself,  which  has  no  power  of  standing 
for  anything  else.  The  second  problem 
of  epistemology  is  thus  answered,  so  far 
as  the  external  world  is  concerned,  by 
denying  the  fact  which  had  to  be  ex- 
plained, while  as  regards  other  selves  and 


92       Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

God,    the    fact    is    assumed    without    any 
very  adequate  explanation. 

Now  it  is  the  first  of  these  two  prob- 
lems which  has,  in  the  history  of  phi- 
losophy, been  most  systematically  and 
consciously  argued  about,  and  the  second 
has  for  the  most  part  been  somewhat 
confusedly  mixed  up  with  it.  We  may 
then  consider,  in  the  present  chapter, 
the  source  of  knowledge  and  nature  of 
the  knowing  process,  as  it  has  been  for- 
mulated in  the  two  opposing  schools  of 
sensationalists  and  rationalists.  And  in 
order  to  make  the  difference  between 
them  clearer,  it  may  be  well  to  say  a 
few  words  about  the  historical  origin  of 
the  antithesis.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning of  philosophical  thinking,  there  has 
been  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
results  of  reflective  thought  cannot  be 
made  to  correspond  completely  with  the 
immediate  impressions  of  ordinary  sense 
experience,  but  the  nature  and  ground  of 
the   difference   was    still    left   vague   and 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      93 

undetermined.  The  first  step  towards  a 
scientific  analysis  was  taken  by  Socrates. 
Socrates  was  interested,  for  practical  rea- 
sons, in  finding  some  permanent  and 
universal  standard  which  could  be  ap- 
plied to  human  action.  Since,  then,  on 
the  surface  men's  ideas  and  opinions  are 
varied  and  contradictory,  he  was  led  to 
look  back  of  these  manifold  differences 
and  inconsistencies,  and  to  find  the  truth 
in  that  residuum  in  which,  after  their 
differences  have  been  eliminated,  men 
ultimately  agree.  If,  for  instance,  we 
want  to  know  what  a  chair  or  a  table 
really  is,  we  must  disregard  all  unessen- 
tial peculiarities  of  color  or  shape,  and 
get  back  to  that  in  which  all  men's  ideas 
correspond,  and  without  which  it  would 
cease  to  be  a  chair  or  table.  In  other 
words,  Socrates  started  out  to  hunt  for 
what  we  call  the  concept,  the  abstract 
or  general  idea,  as  that  about  which  sci- 
entific thought,  as  opposed  to  sense  per- 
ception, was  to  busy  itself.      Now  Plato, 


94      Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

who  was  much  more  interested  in  mere 
abstract  thinking  for  its  own  sake  than 
was  Socrates,  developed  this  conception 
in  a  way  which  was  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance. Here,  on  the  one  side,  was  the  ob- 
ject of  sense,  the  particular  table  which  we 
see,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  concept 
table,  which  did  not  exist  in  the  realm  of 
sense  experience,  but  only  in  the  realm 
of  thought.  Since,  however,  Plato  had 
no  doubt  that  thought,  and  indeed  thought 
alone,  enables  us  to  get  hold  of  the  only 
kind  of  reality  which  is  really  worth 
knowing,  what  sort  of  reality  is  it  to 
which  the  concept  corresponds  ?  Plato 
answered  this  in  the  most  natural  way 
at  the  time,  by  assuming,  alongside  the 
world  of  sense,  another  world,  the  world 
of  ideas  or  concepts ;  and  just  as  sense 
experience  tells  us  of  the  real  existence 
of  the  particular  table,  so  thought  tells 
us  of  the  existence  of  the  concept  table, 
only  in  a  supersensible,  not  a  sensible, 
world.     Indeed,  the   process   of   knowing 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      95 

these  concepts  was  also  conceived  quite 
after  the  analogy  of  sensible  perception; 
only,  as  in  our  present  life  thinking  seems 
to  be  a  direct  and  spontaneous  act,  the 
occasion  of  beholding  these  divine  arche- 
types in  the  world  of  ideas  was  assigned  to 
a  previous  existence,  and  thought  was  re- 
garded as  a  recollection  of  the  impressions 
which  at  that  time  had  been  imprinted 
on  the  soul.  We  have,  therefore,  a  dis- 
tinct dualism,  a  world  of  real  (sensible) 
things,  and  a  higher  realm  of  ideas,  which 
are  the  ultimate  form  of  reality,  and  in 
which  sensible  things  somehow  partici- 
pate, after  a  fashion  which  Plato  never 
succeeded  in  making  clear ;  and,  corre- 
sponding to  this,  we  have  two  separate 
faculties  in  man,  sense  and  thought, 
busied  respectively  about  these  two  dif- 
ferent classes  of  objects. 

The  assumption  that  the  idea  or  concept 
has  an  actual  existence  by  itself  was  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  come  into  question,  and 
during  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  centre 


96      Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

of  a  fierce  conflict  between  the  so-called 
Realists,  and  their  opponents  the  Nomi- 
nalists. These  latter  maintained,  in  gen- 
eral, that  concepts  are  only  products  of 
human  thought,  and  that  real  existences 
are  always  concrete  and  individual. 
For  a  long  time  the  conflict  was  essen- 
tially one  between  theological  conserva- 
tism and  progress,  and  the  issue  was  to 
decide  whether  thought  should  be  re- 
stricted to  a  world  outside  the  finite  world, 
one  that  was  abstract,  and  fixed  by  dogma 
and  tradition  (for  a  purely  logical  process 
requires  its  starting-point  to  be  taken  as 
established  and  self-evident,  and  a  self- 
evident  truth  is  very  apt  to  be  merely  a 
tradition,  something  we  have  grown  so 
used  to  that  it  does  not  occur  to  us  to 
examine  it) ;  or  whether  men  should  be 
allowed  to  find  reality  in  actual  life,  to 
interrogate  it,  and  learn  from  it  immedi- 
ately and  for  themselves  :  and  in  so  far 
as  it  stood  for  this,  the  victory  lay  finally 
with  nominalism.     Accordingly,  there  was 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      97 

witnessed  a  displacement  of  intellectual- 
ism  by  empiricism.  Instead  of  deducing 
truth  demonstratively  from  self-evident 
premises,  by  the  mere  process  of  logic, 
a  process  whose  barrenness  had  become 
more  and  more  apparent,  men  were  told 
to  open  their  eyes  and  look  about  them. 
That  was  truth  which  actually  approved 
itself  to  the  senses,  and  the  only  way  to 
get  hold  of  truth  was  empirically,  by  let- 
ting it  come  in  immediate  contact  with  the 
eye,  and  hand,  and  ear.  The  "  ideas " 
with  which  men  had  been  busy  before 
were  not  derived,  as  they  had  thought, 
from  a  special  source:  they  were  only  an 
abstraction  of  the  common  elements  of 
those  individual  things  which  we  get  at 
originally  in  sense  experience. 

Since  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
however,  there  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
been,  at  least  in  the  intention  of  its  up- 
holders, any  actual  hostility  to  scientific 
inquiry  as  such  on  the  part  of  rational- 
istic philosophy.     There  has  been  a  gen- 


98       Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

eral  disposition  to  agree,  on  both  sides, 
that,  within  a  certain  sphere,  the  scientific 
observation  and  colligation  of  particular 
facts  is  a  necessary  and  justifiable  pro- 
ceeding, and  makes  possible  a  knowledge 
of  the  world  which  we  cannot  get  from 
any  process  of  logic.  No  one,  again, 
would  seriously  hold  at  the  present  day 
that  there  is  an  actual  supersensible  world 
made  up  of  concepts,  or  abstract  ideas ; 
there  is  a  pretty  wide  agreement  that  the 
commoner  concepts  are  arrived  at  as 
nominalism  maintained,  by  abstracting 
those  elements  which  are  common  to  all 
members  of  a  class ;  and  that  therefore 
they  exist  as  a  mental  product,  not  in 
nature.  On  the  other  hand,  nominalism 
soon  found  that  a  world  of  mere  isolated 
particulars,  waiting  to  be  picked  up  one 
by  one  through  observation,  was  not  a 
sufficient  basis  for  fruitfulness  in  the  sci- 
entific inquiry  which  it  had  so  much  at 
heart.  For  a  practical  working  method, 
science  did  not  find  it  enough  merely  to 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism      99 

chronicle  sense  impressions  :  it  requited 
some  intellectual  tool  which  would  ena- 
ble it  also  to  deduce,  necessarily  and 
exactly,  events  which  were  not  actually 
present  to  the  senses.  This  tool  it  found 
in  mathematics.  Mathematics,  then,  sup- 
plies again  the  rational  and  logical  ele- 
ment which  sensationalism  was  inclined 
to  minimize,  and  the  old  problem,  though 
in  a  changed  form,  of  course,  thus  passes 
over  into  modern  thought.  We  no  longer 
think  that  the  abstract  table  exists  in 
renim  nattira,  but  we  talk  about  the  law 
of  gravitation  as  really  existing  and  acting, 
in  much  the  same  way  that  the  old  real- 
ists talked  of  the  ideas  of  good  and  of 
justice.  Our  scientific  world  is  almost 
wholly  expressed  in  terms  of  law,  and 
the  relation  of  law  to  the  facts  of  sense 
is,  therefore,  still  a  real  problem. 

In  view  of  all  this  it  is  not  an  easy 
thing  to  formulate  any  single  statement 
which  shall  adequately  express  the  rela- 
tion  of    rationalism   to   sensationalism   in 


100    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

modern  thought,  but  in  a  rough  way  it 
may  perhaps  be  summed  up  as  follows. 
The  existence  of  a  rational  element,  i.e., 
of  certain  principles  of  order  and  connec- 
tion, through  which  alone  we  can  get 
any  grip  upon  particular  facts  of  sense 
experience,  and  arrange  them  into  an 
objective  world,  amenable  to  scientific 
treatment,  is  admitted  by  all;  the  ques- 
tion turns  upon  the  source  through  which 
these  principles  are  obtained.  To  use  a 
well-known  phrase,  it  is  a  question  of  the 
existence  of  innate  ideas.  Sensationalism 
holds  that  we  have  various  particular  sense 
experiences,  and  that  these  form  our  en- 
tire data;  by  noticing  the  nature  and 
arrangement  of  these  we  may  formulate 
certain  principles,  which  we  may  infer 
to  be  applicable  to  other  experiences  as 
well ;  but  this  is  an  inference,  and  nothing 
more,  and  all  that  we  can  say  of  a  cer- 
tainty is  that  they  are  true  of  the  actually 
experienced  facts  from  which  they  were 
drawn.      Rationalism    maintains,    on    the 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    101 

contrary,  that  sense  experience  sets  the 
mind  to  working  on  its  own  account,  and 
causes  it  to  deliver  itself  of  truths  which 
are  not  contained  in  any  of  our  actual 
experiences,  or  in  all  of  them  together, 
but  which  extend  over  a  wider  ground 
than  experience  can  possibly  cover. 
These  truths,  to  be  sure,  no  longer  are 
regarded  as  constituting  an  abstract  world 
of  reality  by  themselves  in  Plato's  sense, 
but  they  are  supposed  to  tell  us  something 
about  reality,  with  a  certainty  which  the 
senses  never  can  give.  We  feel  sure 
that  they  are  true,  not  because  we  can 
trace  and  verify  them  in  experience,  but 
because,  along  with  the  recognition  of 
them,  goes  a  certain  inner  light,  a  feel- 
ing of  certitude  and  self-evidence  which 
compels  belief.  These  truths,  moreover, 
are  not  concerned  with  mere  empirical 
and  finite  facts,  such  as  get  to  us  through 
perception,  but  with  the  fundamental  real- 
ities of  the  universe;  and  by  properly 
combining  them  and  arguing  from  them, 


102    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

we  may  hope  to  attain  to  ultimate  and 
metaphysical  reality.  The  ideal,  of  course, 
would  be  to  get  a  single  truth  from  which 
everything  could  be  deduced;  but  failing 
this,  we  may  be  satisfied^  to  sift  out  the 
various  isolated  truths  of  which  reason 
delivers  herself,  and  to  arrange  these  in 
such  connection  as  they  will  allow. 

The  real  nature  of  this  ideal  of  logical 
demonstration,  upon  which  rationalism 
is  based,  can  be  more  conveniently  spoken 
of  in  a  subsequent  chapter;  for  the 
present  one  or  two  less  fundamental 
points  may  be  noticed  briefly.  Just  the 
history  of  the  process  through  which  the 
belief  in  a  special  intellectual  faculty  has 
arisen  might  itself  make  us  hesitate 
about  accepting  it,  but  on  this  it  is  not 
necessary  to  insist.  The  essential  fact 
for  which  rationalism  stands,  as  against 
sensationalism,  is  the  existence  of  some- 
thing more  in  the  world  of  experience 
than  a  mere  succession  of  sense  data, 
—  the  existence,  that  is,  of  principles,  of 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    103 

laws,  to  which  the  sensuous  experience 
conforms,  and  which  are  more  vitally 
related  to  it  than  would  be  the  case  were 
we  to  take  them  as  simply  secondary 
derivations,  or  abstractions,  from  an  origi- 
nal reality  which  is  adequately  repre- 
sented as  a  lot  of  isolated  sensations.  But 
now  even  if  the  justice  of  this  be  admit- 
ted,—  and  it  will  be  seen  presently  that 
sensationalism  finds  a  difficulty  here,  — 
yet  the  way  in  which  the  rationalist 
goes  to  work  prevents  him  from  offering 
a  solution  which  is  convincing.  For  in 
so  far  as  he  isolates  the  intellectual 
principles  from  the  sensuous  data,  and 
gives  them,  as  abstract  thought,  a  sepa- 
rate origin,  he  is  making  it  hard  work 
to  conceive  of  them  as  the  laws  of 
these  data.  The  result  is  that  the  ration- 
alist is  always  puzzled  to  fit  sensations 
into  his  scheme,  and  if  he  does  not 
try  to  get  rid  of  them  altogether,  by 
making  them  either  an  illusion,  or  else 
a     form     of     abstract     thought     in     dis- 


104    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

guise,  which  has  somehow  become  con- 
fused and  blurred,  —  and  neither  of  these 
devices  can  be  made  to  convey  a  clear 
and  definite  idea,  —  he  has  to  end  up 
with  a  dualism  between  sense  and  thought 
which  leaves  the  connection  very  much 
in  the  dark.  The  sensuous  material  he 
is  obliged  in  some  sense  to  admit;  but 
if  he  assigns  the  intellectual  principles 
to  another  source,  and  makes  them  deal 
with  what  is,  in  some  degree,  a  different 
field  of  interests,  then  sense  experience 
is  just  what  the  sensationalist  claims  it 
is,  mere  isolated  sensations,  and  the  prin- 
ciples, imported  from  without,  apply  to 
it  only  in  an  external  way.  But  now 
ever^^  one  has  to  admit  that  when  it 
comes  to  the  actual  facts  of  the  world 
as  they  are  known  to  science,  we  are 
dependent  on  obser\^ation  and  experience, 
and  that  self-evident  truths  of  the  intel- 
lect, no  matter  how  valuable  they  may 
be  in  other  spheres,  go  here  a  very 
short  way  indeed.      The   consequence   is 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     105 

that  the  rationalist  practically  grants  that, 
for  the  great  mass  of  experience,  the 
sensationalist's  explanation  is  correct,  and 
he  is  able  to  reserve  for  himself  only 
a  little  group  of  very  abstract  principles. 
It  has  already  been  remarked  that,  so 
far  as  the  commoner  concepts  go,  no 
stress  is  any  longer  laid  upon  them,  and 
it  is  generally  allowed  that  they  may  be 
derived  from  experience  by  abstraction. 
So  also  no  one  would  think  of  establishing 
a  scientific  law  without  directly  interrogat- 
ing nature.  The  sensationalist,  however, 
will  of  course  not  rest  satisfied  with  this. 
If  we  admit  that  thought  abstractions,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  are  derived  in  an 
intelUgible  way  from  sense  experience, 
then  we  ought  not  to  stop  here  arbitra- 
rily, but  clearly  should  go  on  and  see  if 
the  same  explanation  will  not  apply  to 
the  remainder  also.  Accordingly  sensa- 
tionaUsm  has  tended  more  and  more  to 
encroach  on  the  field  which  the  rationalist 
has  marked  off  as  sacred,  and  has  tried 


106    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

consistently  to  show  how  its  explanation 
will  apply,  not  in  some  cases  only,  but 
in  all. 

And  whatever  opinion  may  be  held 
about  his  success  in  this,  the  sensationalist 
has  at  any  rate  the  distinct  logical  advan- 
tage which  the  possessor  of  a  single  prin- 
ciple always  has  over  an  opponent  who  is 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  two.  The 
consequence  has  been,  as  was  said  before, 
that  empiricism  has  practically  been  suc- 
cessful in  claiming  for  itself  all  the  wealth 
of  actual  concrete  experience  which  makes 
up  our  everyday  world,  while  rationalism 
has  had  to  content  itself  with  a  constantly 
restricted  realm  of  very  abstract  truth, 
which  in  comparison  with  the  other  may 
easily  be  made  to  appear  as  hardly  worth 
the  pains.  And  even  if  we  think  that  the 
interests  which  it  involves  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, not  trivial,  but  vastly  important,  it 
still  has  to  pay  the  penalty  of  its  abstract- 
ness.  For  no  amount  of  conviction  as  to 
the  absolute  correctness  of  the  logical  pro- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     107 

cess  of  demonstration,  can  ever  be  quite  a 
satisfactory  basis  for  a  belief  in  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  or  in  those  other  facts  which 
philosophical  as  well  as  religious  interests 
demand.  The  whole  thing  is  too  far  from 
our  practical  concrete  life  and  feelings ;  it 
seems  to  lack  the  substantialness  which 
belongs  to  the  proof  we  demand  in  other 
spheres ;  and  while  we  may  not  be  able  to 
disprove,  or  even,  perhaps,  to  doubt,  those 
axiomatic  truths  on  which  the  whole  argu- 
ment depends,  yet  the  necessity  of  basing 
everything  on  the  evidence  of  a  few  ab- 
stract statements  which  stand  by  them- 
selves, isolated  from  the  concrete  unity 
and  body  of  experience,  whose  total  tes- 
timony we  are  accustomed  to  call  for  if 
we  are  to  have  vital  and  profound  convic- 
tion, makes  it  difficult  for  us  to  rest  with 
certainty,  and  to  rid  ourselves  of  a  linger- 
ing doubt  whether,  after  all,  these  truths 
which  we  have  been  compelled  to  take 
simply  on  their  own  authority  may  not  be 
deceiving  us. 


'  108    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

With  this  brief  statement  of  the  insuf- 
ficiency of  ordinary  rationaUsm,  we  may 
pass  to  the  consideration  of  its  rival  in 
the  field.  The  philosopher  who  has 
carried  out  sensationalism  most  logically 
and  completely  is  David  Hume,  and  as 
he  has  a  particularly  close  connection 
with  both  the  preceding  and  the  subse- 
quent course  of  philosophical  develop- 
ment, his  work  will  furnish  the  most 
convenient  point  of  approach.  It  has 
been  seen  how  Berkeley  gave  up  the 
ontological  substance  which  had  been 
supposed  to  lie  back  of  a  group  of  quali- 
ties, and  so  had  resolved  matter  into 
mere  states  of  consciousness,  into  sensa- 
tions. But  Berkeley  had  never  doubted 
that  there  was  a  substratum,  the  mind  or 
self,  in  which  these  states  of  conscious- 
ness inhere.  Hume  now  carried  the 
analysis  a  step  further.  The  same  rea- 
sons, he  said,  which  prevent  us  from 
believing  in  an  unknown  substance  mat- 
ter, tell  equally  against  an  unknown  sub- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     109 

stance  mind.  If  we  hold  strictly  to  the 
unadorned  facts  of  experience,  then  we 
shall  have  to  confess  that  the  only  thing 
we  can  rest  on,  and  find  solid  under  our 
feet,  is  an  ever-changing  flow  of  par- 
ticular states  of  consciousness  following 
each  other  in  time.  If  I  examine  im- 
partially what  I  call  myself,  I  find  noth- 
ing but  these  particular  conscious  facts ; 
there  may  be  certain  sensations  which, 
from  their  constancy,  or  for  other  rea- 
sons, are  particularly  associated  with  the 
idea  of  the  self,  but  these  are  no  ab- 
stract unity,  but  only  sensations  among 
others,  with  their  own  special  place  in 
the  stream.  That  there  is  a  sensation 
of  red,  of  pressure,  of  a  sweet  taste,  of 
these  things  we  can  be  sure ;  that  there 
is  an  apple  that  is  red  and  sweet,  or 
that  there  is  an  I  who  sees  and  tastes, 
is  but  an  inference,  for  which  philosophy 
furnishes  no  real  justification. 

But  now  if  all  that  experience  contains, 
and  all  that   by  the   conditions  of    know- 


110    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

ledge  we  can  ever  be  assured  of,  is  a 
string  of  sensations,  how  are  we  to 
account  for  those  necessary  truths  on 
which  the  rationalist  relies  ?  It  was 
Hume's  criticism  of  these,  and  especially 
of  the  idea  of  causation,  which  formed 
his  most  noteworthy  contribution  to  phil- 
osophical development.  The  rationalist 
had  assumed  that  there  is  a  necessary 
connection  between  events,  expressed  in 
the  law  that  every  effect  must  have  a 
cause,  and  that  this  is  made  known  by 
an  ultimate  deliverance  of  the  mind. 
But  what,  said  Hume,  do  we  actually 
find  when  we  look  at  the  matter  without 
prejudice  ?  two  events  following  each 
other  in  time,  —  this,  and  nothing  more. 
For  let  any  one  attempt  to  describe  what 
he  thinks  this  necessary  connection  is ; 
he  will  4ind  that  he  cannot  frame  the 
slightest  notion  of  it.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  speak  of  the  connecting  link  as 
a  "  force,"  but  the  concept  of  force  as  an 
immaterial   something,  leaping  over  from 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    111 

one  thing  to  another,  is  utterly  unthink- 
able; if,  on  the  other  hand,  force  is 
conceived  of  definitely,  and  so  is  repre- 
sented by  a  sensational  element,  then  we 
have  only  another  sensation,  which  can- 
not bind  anything  together.  There  are 
the  two  events,  represented  by  sensations, 
one  occurring  after  the  other;  but  more 
than  that  does  not  exist.  It  is  evident 
that  on  the  principles  of  sensationalism 
this  is  the  only  possible  result.  How,  if 
I  depend  simply  on  experience,  can  I 
say  "  must "  .?  I  can  tell  what  always 
has  been,  but  there  my  knowledge  ends; 
I  cannot  say  that  the  same  thing  will 
happen  in  the  future,  or,  indeed,  any- 
thing more  than  that  it  chanced  to  be 
so  in  the  past. 

How,  then,  does  it  happen  that  men 
so  universally  have  got  the  notion  that 
such  a  necessary  connection  exists }  this, 
Hume  thinks,  does  fall  within  the  power 
of  experience  to  explain.  Let  a  thing 
happen   in   a   certain  way  once,  and  we 


112    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

may  think  nothing  of  it,  but  let  it  hap- 
pen in  the  same  way  twenty  or  a  hundred 
times,  and  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should 
look  to  see  the  same  order  repeated  when 
the  thing  occurs  again.  There  is  abso- 
lutely no  proof  that  this  will  be  the  case, 
but  we  naturally  expect  it  will ;  and  this 
natural  expectation,  aroused  by  repeti- 
tion, is  the  sole  basis  of  the  idea  of 
causation.  This  explanation  applied  to 
causation  is  only  a  type  of  similar  ex- 
planations by  means  of  which  the  sensa- 
tionalist school  has  attempted  to  account 
for  all  those  ideas  whose  persistence  has 
seemed  to  the  rationalist  to  call  for  a 
special  power  of  mind.  Sensations  fol- 
lowing one  another  in  time,  and  getting, 
by  continued  repetition,  into  certain  dura- 
ble associations  —  these  are  the  only  postu- 
lates the  sensationalist  thinks  he  stands  in 
need  of  in  order  to  explain  the  world. 

Evidently,  in  thoroughgoing  sensation- 
alism, it  is  not  an  easy  task  to  find  any 
place   for   that   which   is   commonly   sup- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     II3 

posed  to  be  the  chief  end  of  knowledge, 
the  getting  us  into  contact  with  a  reality 
existing  beyond  the  mere  sensational  ex- 
perience itself;  and  this  suggests  the 
most  obvious  objection  to  the  theory.  If 
it  is  true  that  we  have  an  immediate 
knowledge  of  a  string  of  sensations,  and 
of  nothing  besides,  the  logical  result  is 
that,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the 
particular  sensations  which  we  experience 
make  up  the  sum  total  of  the  universe. 
From  this  result,  which  is  technically 
known  as  solipsism,  Berkeley  thought  he 
was  able  to  escape,  though  he  does  not 
make  the  process  altogether  clear.  But 
so  long  as  we  do  not  deny  outright  the 
existence  of  self-evident  truths,  these  may 
be  supposed  to  be  available  to  carry  us 
beyond  the  limited  set  of  sensations 
which  we  experience,  on  the  ground, 
which,  indeed,  appears  self-evident,  that 
these  are  not  self-explanatory,  and  so 
need  some  ulterior  cause.  But  by  deny- 
ing the   existence  of   such  truths,   sensa- 


114    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

tionalism  of  course  deprives  itself  of  this 
expedient.  Taking  it  on  its  own  show- 
ing, there  seems  to  be  no  possible  way 
of  making  it  even  probable  that  any- 
thing exists  beyond  the  particular  sensa- 
tions as  they  come  and  go,  either  in  the 
nature  of  a  material  reality,  or  of  other 
selves.  If  we  appeal  to  that  feeling, 
which  undoubtedly  we  have,  that  a  few 
bare  sensations  are  not  a  sufficient  ground 
for  existence,  and  that  the  continued  ap- 
pearance of  new  sensations,  and  their 
orderly  arrangement,  must  point  to  a 
more  fundamental  reality  out  of  which 
they  spring,  since  they  cannot  arise  out 
of  nothing,  we  are  simply  calling  to  our 
aid,  in  a  slightly  disguised  form,  that 
same  principle  of  causation ;  and  we 
have  only  to  recollect  that  causation  is 
a  mere  subjective  expectation  which  a 
certain  repetition  of  events  has  given 
rise  to,  and  that  not  only  does  it  tell  us 
of  no  fact  of  reality,  but  there  is  no  con- 
ceivable fact,  in  the  nature  of  a  connec- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    115 

tion  between  events,  of  which  it  could 
tell  us,  to  see  how  slender  a  reed  it  is" 
likely  to  prove.  By  no  conceivability  can 
the  bare  existence  of  a  certain  number 
of  facts  give  us  ground  for  believing  that 
anything  beyond  these  facts  exists.  It 
is  clear,  however,  that  this  result  is  some- 
thing which  practically  it  is  impossible 
to  adopt.  Hume  saw  this  as  clearly  as 
any  one,  and  he  admits  that  just  as  soon 
as  we  stop  philosophizing,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  take  back  at  once  all  those  be- 
liefs which  we  had  set  aside,  or  else  we 
should  cease  to  live  altogether.  A  belief 
in  other  people,  at  any  rate,  is  an  abso- 
lute condition  of  our  action.  But  surely 
a  theory  which  not  only  fails  to  account 
for  the  things  which  it  is  practically  im- 
possible for  us  to  doubt,  but  whose  ten- 
dency is  directly  to  deny  them,  will  not 
long  allow  itself  to  be  accepted  as  a  final 
statement  of  truth. 

But  the  same  argument  will  carry   us 
even   further.      On  what   basis,  if  sensa- 


116    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

tionalism  is  true,  are  we  to  believe  in 
those  past  sensations  even,  which  are 
essential  to  the  existence  of  the  theory? 
Each  sensation  stands  for  itself;  it  is 
real  so  long  as  it  exists,  and  that  is  all 
we  can  say  of  it.  But  then  we  should 
be  confined  just  to  the  particular  sensa- 
tion we  are  now  experiencing,  and  should 
be  entirely  oblivious  to  any  that  had 
gone  before.  For  one  sensation  to  take 
us  out  of  itself,  and  tell  us  about  others, 
is  a  function  which  lies  quite  beyond  the 
power  of  sensationalism  to  explain.  On 
a  sensationalistic  basis  we  might  be  im- 
mediately conscious  of  one  sensation  at 
a  time,  but  when  it  gave  place  to  another 
it  would  vanish  completely.  But  in  that 
case,  while  sensationalism  might  be  true, 
it  is  evident  we  should  have  no  theory 
about  it,  for  to  construct  the  theory  we 
have  to  get  behind  the  sensation  of  the 
moment,  and  grasp,  through  memory, 
the  series  as  a  whole. 

Those  relating  forms  of  thought,  there- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism     117 

fore,  which  Hume  professed  to  derive  in 
a  secondary  way  from  a  purely  sensational 
experience,  and  which,  consequently,  in 
opposition  to  the  rationalist,  he  decided 
were  only  a  fiction  of  the  mind,  and  had 
no  valid  application  to  the  actual  world,  he 
could  in  reality  so  derive  only  because  he 
had  smuggled  them  into  his  original  data. 
Hume  pretends  that  he  is  talking  only  of 
isolated  sensations,  feelings;  he  really  is 
unable  to  say  a  word  unless  he  substitutes, 
for  mere  feeling,  a  content  which  already 
is  related  in  various  ways ;  and  relations 
are  the  work  of  thought.  In  order  to  talk 
even  about  feelings  intelligently,  he  has  to 
presuppose  the  world  of  permanent  and 
related  objects,  to  which  we  refer  feelings 
as  their  source.  Hume  could  not  have 
made  his  view  so  much  as  plausible,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  his  ability  to  substitute 
quietly  the  perception  of  an  object  for  the 
feeling  of  a  sensation,  whenever  it  suited 
his  convenience,  and  so  for  the  tacit  pres- 
ence all  along  in  his  argument  of  those 


118    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

ideas  which  he  supposes  that  he  is  discard- 
ing, and  which  the  ambiguity  of  language 
enables  him  to  disguise. 

Such  in  brief  is  the  essential  flaw  in  the 
sensationalist's  position,  and  other  criti- 
cisms would  be  only  an  enlargement  on 
this ;  it  may  be  well,  however,  to  consider 
them  a  little  more  in  detail,  especially  as 
they  bear  upon  the  relation  to  psychology 
and  to  science.  Of  course  sensationalism 
is  first  of  all  a  psychological  theory,  and  it 
is  in  this  sphere  that  its  chief  triumphs 
have  been  won.  And  on  the  whole  its  in- 
fluence has  been  distinctly  beneficial,  for 
it  has  stood  for  an  immediate  appeal  to 
experience,  rather  than  for  a  reliance  upon 
hypothetical  faculties  of  the  mind.  But  it 
has  been  able  to  set  up  for  a  complete 
psychological  theory  only  by  ignoring  the 
fact,  which  is  involved  in  the  criticism 
above,  that  the  existence  of  what,  for  an 
onlooker,  would  be  a  number  of  sensations 
in  a  series,  does  not  at  all  account  for  the 
consciousness  of  these  as  a  series ;  a  sue- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    119 

cession  of  states  of  consciousness  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  consciousness 
of  succession,  and  there  is  no  way  of 
getting  from  the  one  to  the  other. 
The  consciousness  of  succession  is  a  fact 
for  which  sensationalism  has  no  place ; 
sensationalism  could  only  admit  it  as  an 
added  fact  in  the  series,  another  sensa- 
tional element,  and  that  would  be  of  no 
use  whatever  for  the  purpose  in  view, 
which  is  to  get  the  whole  series  into  a 
unity.  There  is,  then,  something  more  to 
the  conscious  life  than  the  sensationalist 
takes  account  of ;  it  has  an  intelligible  and 
purposive  unity,  which  no  description  of  it 
as  a  group  of  sensations  adequately  rep- 
resents. Indeed,  when  we  think  of  the 
ordered  harmony  of  the  world,  and  the 
complex  interplay  of  our  own  rational 
lives,  the  reduction  of  this  all  to  a  mosaic 
made  up  of  bits  of  sensation  seems  almost 
ludicrously  untrue,  if  it  is  meant  really  to 
stand  for  a  complete  psychology.  Accord- 
ingly   there    comes    about    a    change    of 


120    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

attitude  which  is  quite  analogous  to  that 
which  has  already  been  described  in  speak- 
ing of  the  conception  of  material  interac- 
tion. Since  it  is  impossible  to  get  an 
organic  whole  which  will  really  explain 
the  facts  of  the  conscious  life,  by  taking 
the  separate  sensations  as  our  ultimate 
data,  and  simply  adding  these  on  one  to 
another,  it  is  natural  to  ask  what  can  be 
accomplished  by  beginning  at  the  other 
end,  and  making  our  starting-point  the 
unity  of  the  conscious  life,  out  of  which 
the  various  sensations  are  differentiated. 
And  this  is  the  standpoint  which  modern 
psychology  tends  to  adopt.  It  may  still 
be  that,  from  a  certain  point  of  vieWy 
there  is  no  element  in  the  conscious  life 
which  cannot  be  given  an  expression  in 
terms  of  sensation,  but  this  will  not  mean 
that  such  a  point  of  view  is  necessarily  a 
final  one,  or  that  separate  sensations  come 
first,  and  then  out  of  their  combination  the 
more  complex  products  are  built  up.  On 
the    contrary,   no   sensation    can    be   dis- 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    121 

tinguished  except  as  an  element  in  the 
whole ;  the  unity  comes  first,  and  the  sen- 
sation stands  out  from  this  for  some  spe- 
cial reason,  which  depends,  not  on  the 
sensation  itself,  but  on  the  unitary  life  of 
which  it  forms  a  part.  Sensations,  there- 
fore, as  such,  never  at  any  one  time  make 
up  the  whole  of  the  conscious  life,  and  if 
they  did  they  could  not  be  recognized  as 
sensations;  there  is  always  the  unitary 
background  which,  because  it  is  unitary, 
cannot  be  composed  of  a  mechanical 
aggregate  of  parts,  but  must  be  assumed 
as  a  postulate  before  it  can  be  known  that 
there  are  any  parts.  Out  of  this  the  sen- 
sation is  differentiated,  and  without  it  it 
could  neither  be  recognized,  compared 
with  other  sensations,  nor  put  to  any  use 
in  the  economy  of  the  organic  experi- 
ence. It  is  the  recognition  of  this  which 
makes  Hume's  argument  against  the  self 
so  futile,  in  so  far  as  its  effect  on  the  aver- 
age mind  is  concerned. 

The  relation  of  sensationalism  to  scien- 


122    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

tific  inquiry  has  already  been  noticed,  and 
there  will  be  no  need  to  do  more  than 
repeat  briefly  what  has  been  suggested 
before.  Here  again  the  connection  of  the 
theory  with  science  is,  historically,  a  very 
close  one,  for  sensationalism  started  out 
as  a  demand  that  everything  should  be 
brought  back  to  sensuous  experience,  as 
opposed  to  an  a  priori  deduction  from 
purely  abstract  grounds  taken  on  author- 
ity. Nevertheless,  at  the  present  stage  of 
development  which  science  has  reached, 
sensationalism  clearly  fails  to  supply  it 
with  any  adequate  theoretical  basis.  This 
failure  may  be  put  in  two  ways.  In  the 
first  place,  while  sensation  may  be  the 
point  from  which  we  start  in  building  up 
a  scientific  world,  yet  that  world  is  abso- 
lutely different  from  its  sensational  basis. 
It  is  permanent,  whereas  sensations  are 
transitory ;  it  is  rigidly  conformed  to  law, 
and  presents  an  order  altogether  different 
from  that  apparently  haphazard  order  in 
which  sensations  follow  one  another.    Sen- 


ff  UNIVERSITY 

Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    123 

sationalism,  in  other  words,  fails  to  pro- 
vide any  way  of  getting  beyond  that 
succession  of  particular  sensations  which 
comes  to  us  empirically  in  actual  experi- 
ence, while  science  demands  that  the 
world  with  which  it  deals  should  represent 
a  reality  altogether  distinct  from  this  ex- 
perience. It  very  evidently  is  supposed 
to  exist  beyond  all  actual  sensations,  but 
the  point  may  be  obscured  a  little  by  re- 
ducing it  to  actual  or  possible  sensations, 
as  if  in  this  way  we  were  going  to  avoid 
the  necessity  of  getting  beyond  sensations 
after  all.  But  these  possible  sensations 
must  have  some  sort  of  an  existence,  must 
be  something  more  than  mere  figments  of 
the  imagination,  if  they  are  to  serve  any 
purposes  of  explanation ;  and  since  vastly 
the  greater  number  of  them  never  exist  as 
actual  sensations  at  all  in  any  human  ex- 
perience, they  must  be  supposed  to  stand 
for  something  beyond  this  experience; 
and  such  a  reality,  to  repeat,  sensation- 
alism has  no  way  of  attaining. 


124    Rationalism  and  Sensationalism 

The  other  thing  which  science  demands, 
and  which  sensationalism  is  wholly  unable 
to  supply,  is  the  element  of  necessity. 
The  scientist  works  constantly  on  the 
assumption  that  his  results  are  strictly 
necessary ;  he,  of  all  men,  is  least  able  to 
tolerate  the  notion  that  there  should  be 
anything  of  chance,  of  contingency,  in  the 
world;  he  demands  that  law  should  rule 
everywhere  and  always.  But  we  have 
seen  that  Hume  made  it  once  for  all  im- 
possible to  justify  this;  if  Hume's  conten- 
tion is  true,  we  can  perhaps  state  that 
which  has  been  in  the  past,  but  as  to  any- 
thing that  has  not  actually  entered  into 
our  experience  we  cannot  even  establish 
a  presumption.  For  with  the  data  which 
he  gives  us,  even  that  expectation  which 
grows  up  with  repetition  must  be  recog- 
nized as  a  subjective  feeling  only,  of 
absolutely  no  account  as  proof.  For  the 
fact  that  a  thing  happens  a  thousand 
times,  does  not  give  rise  to  the  slightest 
probability  it  will  happen  so  again,  unless 


Rationalism  and  Sensationalism    125 

we  assume  the  very  point  at  issue  to  start 
with.  How  can  we  assert  that,  by  increas- 
ing the  number  of  particular  instances 
from  which  our  conclusion  is  drawn,  the 
probability  of  its  validity  becomes  greater  ? 
Only  on  the  ground  that,  by  increasing 
the  number  of  cases,  we  can  feel  more 
certain  that  what  we  have  observed  is 
not  due  to  mere  chance  or  accident. 
But  this  distinction  between  two  alterna- 
tives, causation,  or  chance,  has  no  mean- 
ing unless  we  assume  a  universe  governed 
by  causation,  and  the  existence  of  such 
a  universe  is  the  very  thing  we  want  to 
demonstrate.  Granting  the  distinction, 
it  may  furnish  a  practical  criterion  for 
other  inferences,  but  it  never  can  estab- 
lish the  inference  which  is  involved  in 
the  law  of  causation  itself ;  for  it  is 
clearly  impossible  to  prove  anything  by 
a  process  which  already  involves  the 
validity  of  the  thing  we  want  to   prove. 


KANT 


KANT 

N  the  attempt  to  discover  the 
true  nature  of  reality,  we  found 
it  was  impossible  to  proceed 
far  without  examining  more  closely  the 
act  of  knowledge  itself.  Setting  aside 
that  element  of  the  problem  which  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  inquiry  as  to  how 
a  fact  of  experience  can  refer  to  some- 
thing beyond  itself,  in  the  last  chapter 
we  had  to  consider  the  nature  of  the 
knowing  process  as  a  part  of  experience, 
and  the  two  types  of  theory  which  make 
it  to  consist  in  sensation  and  in  thought 
respectively.  It  appeared  that  neither 
of  these  attempts  to  explain  knowledge' 
was    fully   successful.      Apparently   both 

K  129 


130  Kant 

sensation  and  thought  alike  are  required 
in  any  act  of  knowing;  sensation  to  fur- 
nish the  material,  and  thought  to  pre- 
vent this  from  being  chaotic  merely,  and 
to  subject  it  to  law.  This  efement  of 
law  is  recognized  by  the  ratipnalist,  but 
recognized  in  an  inadequate  way;  by 
separating  the  principles  of  thought  so 
sharply  from  experience,  he  cannot,  on 
the  one  hand,  explain  their  relation 
to  sense  experience,  which  as  such  re- 
mains open  to  the  same  objections  which 
the  sensationalist  has  to  meet ;  and  then, 
too,  he  has  to  encounter  all  the  difficulties 
attaching  to  the  notion  of  a  knowledge 
whose  source  lies  altogether  outside  the 
realm  of  experience,  difficulties  which 
modern  empiricism  has  made  sufficiently 
prominent.  Sensationalism,  on  the  other 
hand,  recognizes  clearly  that  such  a  tran- 
scendental knowledge,  regarded  as  separate 
from  experience,  is  out  of  the  question ; 
its  failure  consists  in  putting  a  too  re- 
stricted  content    into    its    conception    of 


Kant  131 

what  experience  is.  In  the  criticism  of 
sensationalism  which  has  just  been  given, 
there  are,  as  it  may  have  been  noticed, 
two  somewhat  distinct  lines  of  objection. 
Sensationa^lism  may  be  attacked,  in  the 
first  place,  because  it  supplies  no  means 
of  getting  outside  the  individual  experi- 
ence, to  the  world  of  objects  which  science 
regards  as  distinct  from  this.  But  we 
also  may  object  to  it,  as  giving  only  a 
partial  account  of  what  the  individual 
experience  itself  is  like.  Mere  isolated 
sensations  form,  as  we  have  seen,  no 
experience  at  all;  thought  relations  are 
necessary  in  order  to  bind  this  material 
together.  Naturally,  then,  we  might 
expect  to  find  the  next  step  in  the  direc- 
tion of  some  theory  which  should  recog- 
nize the  importance  of  both  factors  alike, 
while  adjusting  them  within  a  larger 
whole;  which  should  correct  sensational- 
ism by  allowing  the  necessity  of  thought 
relations,  but  which  should  regard  such 
relations,  not  as  something  separate  and 


132  Kant 

transcendental,  but  as  an  essential  con- 
stituent of  experience  itself :  and  it  is  a 
development  in  this  direction  which  was 
begun  by  Kant. 

The  name  of  Immanuel  Kant  must  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  two  or  three 
greatest  names  in  the  history  of  philoso- 
phy. The  particular  results  which  he 
reached  may  not  be  acceptable  to  us 
now,  and  we  may  think  that  his  mode 
of  reaching  and  of  stating  them  was 
cumbersome,  technical,  and  a  trifle  pe- 
dantic ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  new 
insight  which  he  gained,  and  the  new 
point  of  view  from  which  he  approached 
philosophical  problems,  have  dominated 
the  whole  succeeding  course  of  thought, 
and  have  proved  the  starting-point  for 
the  most  fruitful  philosophic  development 
since  the  time  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  We 
must  try  to  discover  what,  stripped  of  its 
technicalities,  the  real  meaning  of  Kant's 
thought  was. 

The    starting-point   of    Kant's   philoso- 


Kant  133 

phy,  and  the  problem  which  he  had  to 
solve,  was,  as  has  been  said,  this  same 
problem  which  we  have  been  consider- 
ing as  the  conflict  between  sensationalism 
and  rationalism.  Kant  started  out  him- 
self as  a  rationalist  of  the  most  rigorous 
type,  a  rationalist  of  the  school  of  Wolff. 
Wolff  was  one  of  those  fortunate  phi- 
losophers who  have  been  persuaded  that, 
out  of  the  most  abstract  propositions  of 
logical  thought,  they  have  been  able  to 
deduce  a  perfect  system  of  truth,  which 
demonstrates  all  those  realities  which  men 
have  been  accustomed  to  strive  after  in 
philosophy,  —  God,  freedom,  immortality, 
and  the  whole  scheme  and  framework  of 
the  universe.  This  was  on  the  assump- 
tion, which  for  some  time  had  been  com- 
mon among  philosophers,  that  the  ideal 
of  a  philosophical  method  was  mathe- 
matics or  geometry.  Mathematics,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  been  used  practically  in 
science,  and  had  achieved  startling  re- 
sults ;    and  it  was  natural   that   it   should 


134  Kant 

thereupon  be  transferred  to  philosophy 
as  well.  Now  what  struck  men  first  in 
the  method  of  geometry  was  that,  start- 
ing from  certain  admitted  premises,  you 
could  deduce,  and  be  demonstratively  sure 
of  your  deduction  of,  a  great  number  of 
new  mathematical  relations.  It  was  ex- 
actly the  same  thing  that  Wolff,  and 
after  him  Kant,  tried  to  do  in  the  realm 
of  ontological  and  cosmological  truths. 

Kant  came  to  a  recognition  of  the 
fruitlessness  of  all  these  endeavors,  by 
convincing  himself  of  the  fact,  which 
had  escaped  the  notice  of  his  prede- 
cessors, that,  in  reality,  there  is  an  essen- 
tial difference  in  the  way  in  which  men 
had  gone  to  work  in  metaphysics,  and  in 
geometry.  For  geometry,  as  opposed  to 
metaphysics,  was  constantly  falling  back 
on  at  least  the  spatial  form  of  sensuous 
experience.  The  geometrician,  that  is, 
gets  his  results  by  constantly  envisaging 
space  relations,  and  by  drawing  lines, 
actually    or   ideally,    to    show    him    what 


Kant  135 

these  relations  are ;  he  does  not  deduce 
his  conclusions  from  his  axioms  and  prop- 
ositions barely  as  intellectual  truths.  But 
in  metaphysics  no  such  appeal  is  made. 
As  soon  as  we  are  in  possession  of  this 
distinction,  we  are  able  to  recognize,  what 
indeed  is  noticeable  enough,  that  the 
solidity  of  achievement,  and  continuous- 
ness  of  development,  which  we  see  in 
mathematics,  seem  in  philosophy  almost 
wholly  wanting.  We  may  infer,  there- 
fore, that  it  is  just  this  relation  which 
it  bears  to  the  spatial  form  of  sense 
experience  that  gives  mathematics  its  ad- 
vantage over  metaphysics,  and  enables  it, 
instead  of  stopping  with  merely  analytic 
propositions,  to  be  all  the  time  advanc- 
ing to  something  new ;  and  that,  conse- 
quently, mathematics  furnishes  no  analogy 
by  which  a  purely  rational  treatment  of 
philosophy  can  be  justified.  On  the  con- 
trary, this  recognition  of  the  difference 
involved  is  fatal  to  the  claim  which 
rationalism  makes. 


136  Kant 

Confronted  by  this  outcome,  Kant  next 
turned,  as  other  philosophers  had  done, 
to  empiricism,  in  order  to  find  the  origin 
of  those  necessary  truths  from  which  he 
hoped  to  satisfy  his  longing  for  a  know- 
ledge of  the  eternal  interests  of  man. 
But  here  again  he  was  met  by  Hume, 
who  proved  to  him  that  it  is  just  such 
necessary  and  universal  truths,  as,  e.g.j 
the  universality  of  causation,  which  ex- 
perience is  entirely  unable  to  explain. 
Now  Hume  had  stopped  here,  and  left 
the  matter  so ;  Kant  went  beyond  him 
by  noticing,  what  already  has  been  men- 
tioned as  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  sen- 
sationalism, that  on  such  an  outcome  no 
ground  is  left  for  scientific  certainty.  If, 
Kant  said,  Hume's  sensationalism  is  the 
end  of  the  matter,  then  it  is  utterly  out 
of  the  question  for  us  to  say  that  any- 
thing must  be  so ;  we  can  say  that  it 
always  has  been  so  in  the  past,  but 
there  the  thing  must  drop.  But  now  as 
a   matter  of   fact  we  have   two  sciences, 


Kant  137 

mathematics  and  physics,  in  which  such 
necessary  a  priori  judgments  are  con- 
stantly made.  To  give  up  the  splendid 
results  of  science  is  impossible;  if,  then, 
we  cannot  be  content  to  accept  a  theory 
which  takes  away  their  foundations,  we 
must  search  further,  and  ask  ourselves 
what  conditions  are  required  to  serve  as 
a  secure  basis  for  these  results  which 
every  one  admits.  How,  in  other  words, 
is  it  possible  to  pass  a  judgment  which 
does  not  simply  state  the  results  of  what 
we  have  learned  in  the  past,  but  which 
adds  to  our  knowledge,  and  which  yet, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  goes  beyond 
what  we  have  already  experienced,  can 
be  said  to  be,  not  probably,  but  neces- 
sarily and  universally  true }  Such  was  the 
question  which  Kant  put  to  himself. 

The  answer  which  he  gives  is  suffi- 
ciently long  and  detailed,  and  in  very 
large  part  can  be  left  to  the  advanced 
student  of  philosophy;  it  is  the  essential 
attitude  which   Kant  adopts  in  which  we 


138  Kant 

are  interested  here.  It  has  already  been 
noticed  that  the  problem  of  knowledge 
involves  two  pretty  distinct  questions, — 
the  possibility  of  a  reference  in  knowledge 
to  reality  lying  beyond  the  experience 
of  the  one  who  knows,  and  existing  on 
its  own  account,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  nature  of  knowing  as  an  experience, 
and  the  peculiar  part  played  within  this 
by  the  sensuous  data  and  the  governing 
principles  of  thought,  respectively.  It 
is  one  of  Kant's  merits  that  he  began 
the  process  of  disentangling  these  two 
problems,  and  so  rendered  possible  a 
fruitful  treatment  of  each  of  them, 
though  it  was  the  latter  one  to  which 
he  himself  gave  the  most  of  his  atten- 
tion. This,  therefore,  is  what  we  shall 
consider  first. 

We  must  remember  what  the  ordinary 
treatment  of  the  part  played  by  thought 
in  knowledge  has  for  the  most  part 
been.  Thought  and  sense  have  been 
looked   upon,   in   the   more   or   less  com- 


Kant  139 

mon-sense  way  of  viewing  the  matter, 
as  two  separate  sources  of  authority,  each 
valid  in  its  own  sphere,  which  is  more 
or  less  distinct  from  that  of  the  other, 
and  each  referring  to  facts  of  reality 
already  existing  by  themselves  in  some- 
thing the  same  form  in  which  they  are 
known.  The  difference  is  that  the 
facts  revealed*  by  sense  are  contingent 
and  empirical  merely,  while  those  re- 
vealed by  thought  are  necessary,  and, 
metaphysically,  of  much  greater  impor- 
tance, as  giving  us  an  account  of  reality 
in  its  essential  structure.  Now  Kant 
undertook  to  show  that  thought,  in  this 
meaning  of  the  term  in  which,  as  ab- 
stract, it  stands  opposed  to  sense  data, 
does  not  by  itself  tell  us  about  reality 
at  all;  that  the  only  valuable  question 
is,  What  part  does  thought  play  within 
experience  ?  not.  What  reference  does  it 
bear  to  truth  lying  beyond?  for  there 
is  no  sphere  of  truth  beyond  experience 
to   which   it   corresponds.     Or,  to   put   it 


140  Kant 

as  an  answer  to  the  question  about  the 
possibiHty  of  necessary  judgments,  Kant 
found  the  necessity  he  was  in  search  of, 
not  as  something  in  nature,  which  is 
then  reproduced  and  known  in  our  ex- 
perience, but  as  something  in  experience 
which  itself  constitutes  what  we  know 
as  nature.  He  reached  this  conclusion 
in  the  following  way.  Suppose  we  take 
a  geometrical  truth ;  how  now  can  we 
say,  absolutely  and  without  exception, 
that  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  any  tri- 
angle will  equal  two  right  angles }  Not 
from  experience ;  that  would  tell  us  that 
the  proposition  was  true  of  all  the  tri- 
angles we  had  examined  in  the  past, 
but  not  that  it  would  prove  to  be  true 
of  the  next  one  we  might  happen  to 
meet.  If  it  be  as  true  as  you  please 
about  triangles  in  their  own  proper 
existence,  yet  triangles  can  only  come 
into  our  experience  one  by  one,  and  by 
this  process  we  could  only  tell  the  facts 
about    the    particular    triangles    we    had 


Kant  141 

run  across  up  to  date,  not  about  the 
rest  which  as  yet  had  not  come  into 
contact  with  us.  The  necessity,  that  is, 
in  so  far  as  we  can  talk  of  necessity, 
cannot  lie  in  reality  as  it  exists  in  itself 
apart  from  our  experience,  for  since  we 
cannot  grasp  the  whole  of  infinite  reality 
at  once,  and  since  it  is  the  conviction  of 
a  necessary  connection  in  our  experience 
that  is  to  be  justified,  the  coming  of 
reality  piecemeal  into  experience  gives 
us  no  ground  for  asserting  anything 
whatever  of  that  which  still  is  left  out- 
side. What  follows  then  t  Simply  this, 
that  if  we  grant  the  validity  of  neces- 
sary judgments  at  all,  it  must  be 
founded  on  the  nature  of  our  experi- 
ence, not  on  the  nature  of  the  reality 
that  is  known.  If,  that  is,  our  experi- 
ence is  of  such  a  nature  that  nothing 
can  entet  into  it  without  taking  on  a 
particular  form,  then  we  can  say,  with 
certainty,  that  everything,  in  the  future 
as   well   as   in   the   past,  must   have  just 


142  Kant 

this  form  and  no  other;  we  can  pass, 
in  other  words,  a  necessary,  synthetic 
judgment  a  priori,  and  on  no  other  con- 
dition can  we  do  so.  This  necessary 
form  which  outer  sense  material  must 
take,  and  which  renders  mathematics 
possible,  is  space,  while  time,  again,  is 
the  form  of  the  inner  sense.  No  mat- 
ter what  may  be  true  of  reality  beyond 
experience,  we  can  be  perfectly  sure  that, 
for  us,  all  experience  will  correspond  to 
geometrical  truths,  because,  unless  it  suc- 
ceeds in  taking  on  the  spatial  form  on 
which  geometry  is  based,  it  will  not 
form  part  of  our  experience  at  all,  but 
will  forever  remain  shut  out  from  our 
knowledge. 

In  precisely  the  same  way  we  are  to 
account  for  those  other  necessary  judg- 
ments, the  intellectual  ones.  How  can 
we  be  sure,  e.g.,  that  every  effect  must 
have  a  cause,  or  that  there  must  always 
be  a  substance  underlying  qualities.? 
simply   because   our    intellectual    machin- 


Kant  143 

ery  is  so  constituted  that  it  will  take 
no  grist  which  does  not  adapt  itself  to 
these  particular  forms  of  substance  and 
causality.  A  necessary  judgment  is  pos- 
sible, for  the  reason  that  we  are  not 
judging  about  things  in  themselves,  but 
about  the  necessary  connection  of  ele- 
ments in  our  own  experience ;  and  we 
could  have  nothing  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  call  experience,  if  it  were 
not  for  certain  necessary  forms  of  re- 
lationship between  the  elements  which 
make  it  up.  In  other  words,  if  I  am 
to  be  an  intelligent  being,  and  have  an 
experience  which  also  is  intelligible,  this 
experience  must  be  to  a  certain  degree 
coherent.  If  it  is  to  be  my  experience, 
it  must  be  a  unity;  I  must  somehow  be 
present  through  it  all,  binding  its  parts 
together  into  a  whole.  It  cannot  be  a 
simple  string  of  feelings  succeeding  one 
another  in  time,  for,  as  we  saw  in  criti- 
cising sensationalism,  such  a  series  would 
have  no  knowledge  of  itself  as  a  unity : 


144  Kant 

it  is  the  "  I  "  which  binds  these  feelings 
together  by  threads  of  intellectual  rela- 
tionships, which  are  not  themselves  a 
part  of  the  series  at  all.  This  cohe- 
rency in  my  life  implies  not  merely  that 
groups  of  fleeting  sensations  should  exist, 
but  it  also  necessitates  that  I  should  be 
able  to  recognize  these,  and  so  that 
they  should  stand  for  objects  that  are 
identical  and  permanent;  and  a  per- 
manent object  already  involves  the 
category  of  substantiality.  Permanence 
requires  that  we  should  have  a  con- 
sciousness of  succession,  and  we  have 
seen  that  this  is  something  that  a  mere 
succession  of  states  of  consciousness  can 
never  give,  and  that  it  needs  some  sort 
of  conscious  unity  to  bind  the  states  of 
consciousness  together,  a  unity  which  is 
not  itself  a  member  of  the  temporal 
series.  Then,  too,  the  different  objects, 
if  they  are  to  form  part  of  a  single  ex- 
perience, must  be  reciprocally  connected 
with  one  another,  members  of  a  common 


Kant  145 

world ;  and,  again,  the  past  and  future 
must  have  some  intelligible  and  neces- 
sary relation,  since  they  also  are  parts 
of  a  single  experience,  in  every  point 
of  which  I  find  myself  equally  present; 
and  so  we  need  the  categories  of  reci- 
procity and  causality,  as  tools  which  the 
self  necessarily  requires  to  help  it  unify 
its  life.  Beyond  our  experience  these 
categories  may  not  apply ;  but  since  it 
is  only  such  elements  of  reality  as  will 
fit  the  mould  in  which  our  intellectual 
nature  is  cast,  that  in  any  wise  concern 
us,  we  can  take  the  laws  as  absolute. 
It  is  not,  then,  nature  which  imposes  its 
necessity  upon  us,  but  it  is  we  who  give 
laws  to  nature.  The  truths  of  the  ra- 
tionalist are  not  revelations  of  existence 
beyond ;  they  show  instead  our  own  in- 
tellectual make-up.  They  are  the  forms 
of  experience,  as  over  against  its  con- 
tent. 

For  Kant,  consequently,  thought  is  no 
longer,  as  with  the  rationalist,  something 


146  Kant 

that  occupies  a  special  field  of  its  own 
alongside  sensational  experience ;  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  purely  sensational  ex- 
perience, which  thought  relations  do  not 
already  help  to  constitute.  The  sensation- 
alist had  tried  to  make  out  that  bare 
sensations  come  first,  and  that  thought  is 
afterwards  imposed  as  a  superstructure 
upon  them.  Kant  met  this  by  showing 
that  any  statement  we  can  make,  even  the 
very  arguments  by  which  such  a  result 
is  reached,  already  presuppose  what  they 
want  to  prove.  There  is  absolutely  no  piece 
of  experience  which  goes  beyond  a  mere 
momentary  and  inarticulate  feeling,  and 
so  no  experience  at  all  that  philosophy 
can  take  account  of,  which  does  not  al- 
ready show  thought  relations  bound  up 
in  it.  An  original  state  of  pure  subjec- 
tivity is  a  fiction ;  from  the  very  start 
experience  is  objective,  the  experience 
of  a  cosmos.  And  an  inquiry  into  the 
nature  of  the  most  essential  of  these 
thought  relations  which  are  found  in  all 


Kant  147 

experience,    constitutes    a    chief    part   of 
Kant's   work. 

With  this  somewhat  brief  and  summary 
statement  of  Kant's  doctrine,  we  may 
pass  on  to  an  important  consequence 
of  it  which  still  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
-It  is  quite  essential,  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand Kant,  to  grasp  clearly  at  the  start 
a  distinction  between  two  possible  ways 
in  which  such  terms  as  "nature  "  and  the 
"objective  world"  may  be  used.  When 
Kant  says  that  we  ourselves  constitute 
nature,  he  does  not  mean,  as  at  first  we 
might  naturally  be  inclined  to  suppose, 
that  the  great  fabric  of  reality  which,  in 
our  ordinary  way  of  viewing  the  world, 
we  think  of  as  existing  eternally,  and 
as  forming  the  ground  out  of  which  we, 
as  transient  beings,  have  sprung,  first 
gains  the  right  to  be  by  coming  under 
subjection  to  certain  rules  which  our 
mind  imposes ;  that  we  create  all  that 
is,  as  the  subjective  idealist  might  main- 
tain.     This    is   one    sense    of    the    term 


148  Kant 

"objective  world," — that  eternal  and  fun- 
damental background  which  we  are  ready 
to  believe  exists  alongside  and  beyond  our 
transient  human  experience.  But  we  may 
take  another  point  of  view  from  this. 
Suppose  I  look  back  on  any  section  of 
my  experience,  that,  e.g.,  through  which 
yesterday  I  passed.  Now  within  this 
experience,  as  an  experience,  there  is 
represented,  quite  distinct  from  the  "  me  " 
which  is  only  one  special  element  of  it, 
the  world  in  which  I  live  and  move,  and 
the  other  men  and  women  with  whom  I 
come  in  contact.  I  walk  down  a  street, 
I  enter  a  house,  I  sit  down  to  dinner, 
I  converse  with  this  man  or  that.  It  is 
true  that  afterwards  I  think  of  it  all  as 
my  experience,  and  I  suppose  that  the^ 
reality  of  the  house  and  table  and  men 
was  not  exhausted  in  their  existence  as 
a  part  of  this  experience,  but  that  they 
also  were  in  possession  of  an  existence 
of  their  own ;  but  even  as  my  experience 
it  was  not    a  chaos    of   subjective    sensa- 


Kant  149 

tions,  but  an  objectively  ordered  whole, 
of  which  other  men  and  things  consti- 
tute just  as  real  a  part  as  I  myself  do. 
Now  it  is  nature  in  this  sense  of  which 
Kant  speaks  when  he  says  that  we  con- 
stitute the  world;  it  is  the  world  as  it 
has  an  existence  within  human  experience, 
the  house  as  it  plays  a  part  in  my  life, 
and  then  passes  out  again  to  give  place 
to  something  else,  not  the  house  as  it 
exists  on  its  own  account,  independently 
of  human  activities. 

It  is  to  be  noticed,  therefore,  that  when 
Kant  speaks  of  experience,  and  of  the 
objective  world  as  an  element  in  expe- 
rience, he  always  means  the  individual 
experience,  and  it  never  occurs  to  him  to 
doubt  that  beyond  this  lies  a  more  ulti- 
mate reality  on  which  the  individual  ex- 
perience is  based.  To  be  sure,  this 
individual  experience  is  not  the  mere 
empirical  self  that  can  be  completely  de- 
fined as  a  succession  of  states  of  conscious- 
ness in  time,  for  we  have  seen  that  these 


150  Kant 

latter  are  only  real  as  they  are  moulded  into 
a  coherent  unity  by  the  spontaneous  and 
unconscious  action  of  a  higher  Ego,  which 
is  present  in  all  of  them  alike,  and  so  is 
itself  in  some  sense  out  of  time;  and  the 
distinction  between  this  "  higher "  Ego, 
and  the  empirical  self,  opened  up  a 
problem  which,  in  the  confusion  which 
still  existed  in  Kant's  theory  of  know- 
ledge, introduces  a  good  deal  of  ambi- 
guity at  times  into  his  statements,  and 
paves  the  way  for  the  later  idealism  of 
his  followers.  Still  the  concrete  basis  of 
all  that  Kant  is  talking  about,  as  he  for 
the  most  part  recognizes  himself,  is  that 
unity  of  experience  which  ordinarily  is 
regarded  as  making  up  an  individual 
life,  taken,  of  course,  not  as  a  mere 
string  of  sensations,  but  as  an  intelligi- 
ble unity,  within  which  there  is  repre- 
sented a  world  of  things  and  other  selves. 
But  it  also  follows  from  Kant's  doctrine 
that,  as  regards  the  nature  of  the  ulti- 
mate reality  which  lies  beyond  experience, 


Kant  151 

we  must  forever  remain,  intellectually  at 
least,  in  the  profoundest  ignorance.  For 
everything  that  can  enter  into  our  expe- 
rience is  incurably  affected  by  the  nature 
of  our  own  mind,  which  throws  all  its 
knowledge  into  the  form  of  space  and 
time;  and  these  forms,  as  merely  subjec- 
tive, make  it  forever  impossible  that  we 
should  know  how  the  real  exists  in  its 
own  proper  nature,  when  subjective  forms 
are  laid  aside.  The  claims  of  rationalism 
to  grasp  reality  are  defeated  by  the  in- 
dissoluble connection  of  thought  with  the 
material  of  sense.  Rationalism  had  sup- 
posed that  thought  is  an  independent 
faculty  that  can  work  by  itself ;  Kant 
showed,  on  the  contrary,  that  for  any 
concrete  act  of  knowledge,  thought  and 
sense  are  both  alike  required.  Sense 
material  alone  is  blind  and  unordered,  it 
is  not  experience  at  all  in  an  objective 
sense ;  thought  by  itself  is  empty,  a  mere 
form,  which  requires  a  content  before  the 
terms  "true"  and  "false"  can  be  applied 


152  Kant 

to  it.  This  is  the  answer  to  the  query- 
why,  even  though  it  be  true  that,  strictly, 
the  nature  of  knowledge  only  enables  us 
to  speak  of  necessity  in  connection  with 
our  experience,  there  might  not  be  a 
possibility,  at  least,  that  ultimate  reality 
also  corresponds  to  this  same  necessary- 
law  which  our  mental  life  reveals ;  a 
correspondence  between  reality  and  the 
thought  laws  is  out  of  the  question,  be- 
cause the  thought  forms  by  themselves 
are  mere  abstractions,  only  half  of  what 
is  necessary  for  valid  knowledge. 

Let  us  consider,  then,  just  what  Kant 
has  accomplished.  First  of  all,  he  has 
shown  that  experience  is  far  more  than 
the  sensationalist  had  suspected;  instead 
of  being  a  host  of  individual  sensations, 
it  is  an  intelligible  unity,  within  which 
all  the  elements  are  related  to  each  other 
so  as  to  form  an  organic  whole.  And  on 
this  basis  he  is  able  to  effect  a  certain 
reconciliation  between  sensationalist  and 
rationalist.      With    the    sensationalist,    he 


Kant  153 

denies  that  it  is  possible  to  get  beyond 
experience ;  but  within  experience  we  are 
not  confined  to  a  statement  of  what  has 
been,  but  we  are  able  to  pass  necessary 
judgments  as  to  what  the  general  nature 
of  subsequent  experience  must  be.  In 
other  words,  while  we  cannot  say  that 
this  particular  event  is  necessarily  con- 
nected with  that  particular  event,  we  can 
say  that  nothing  which  does  not  enter 
into  an  intelligible  relationship  to  the  rest 
of  experience  can  ever  exist  for  us,  since 
experience  means  nothing  except  as  it 
forms  an  intelligible  whole.  We  have, 
that  is,  in  so  far  as  reality  is  of  the  nature 
of  experience,  a  rational  basis  for  those 
necessary  ties  between  events  which 
science  demands,  although  this  does  not 
determine  what  the  connections  are  in 
particular.  But  at  least  there  is  the 
advantage  that  we  have  not  rendered,  as 
sensationalism  does,  the  possibility  of 
such  necessary  connections  unintelligible. 
We   cannot    say  that   no  event  can  take 


154  Kant 

place  in  the  world  of  reality  without  a 
cause,  but  we  can  say  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  us  to  carry  out  the  demand  which 
is  laid  upon  us  as  reasonable  beings,  and 
explain  rationally  any  event,  except  as 
we  bring  it  into  that  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  world  which  is  represented  by  the 
category  of  causation.  While,  however,  it 
is  only  with  reference  to  our  experience 
that  this  necessity  holds,  Kant  did  not 
give  up  the  notion  of  a  reality  beyond 
experience.  It  will  be  seen  that,  in 
one  respect  at  least,  he  has  retained 
the  old  dualism  of  mind  and  matter; 
there  is  still  the  mind  or  self  with  its 
laws,  and  the  outer  world  which  in  some 
way  supplies  this  with  the  data  of  sense. 
And  not  only  the  outer  world,  but  the 
self  also,  is  in  its  real  nature  unknown ; 
it  is  only  as  the  two  come  together  and 
produce  the  concrete  facts  of  experience, 
that  we  get  anything  that  is  accessible 
to  knowledge.  We  have,  then,  a  limited 
field  of  concrete    experience,  bounded  on 


Kant  155 

each  side  by  unknown  tracts;  and  it  is 
according  as  one  or  the  other  of  these 
aspects  of  Kant's  thought  is  emphasized, 
that  we  get  the  two  main'  streams  of 
development  that  flow  from  him.  By 
recognizing  the  existence  of  things-in- 
themselves,  Kant  opens  up  the  problem 
of  epistemology,  in  the  form  in  which  it 
deals  with  that  which  has  been  spoken 
of  as  the  external  reference  in  knowledge; 
and  on  this  side  of  his  thought  he  has 
given  the  impulse  which  has  resulted  in 
neo-Kantian  agnosticism.  But  while  he 
always  stubbornly  maintained  that  such 
an  extra-experiential  reality  was  an  in- 
dubitable fact,  yet  the  whole  logic  of  his 
doctrine  renders  it  impossible  to  hold  to, 
and  the  practical  result  of  his  most  char- 
acteristic labors  was  to  transfer  the  prob- 
lem from  the  consideration  of  such  things- 
in-themselves,  to  an  inquiry,  into  the 
factors  which  enter  into  actual  experience. 
Even  here  the  dualism  with  which  Kant 
started  he  never    wholly   overcomes;    the 


156  Kant 

sense  material  and  the  governing  laws 
of  thought  stand  out  as  in  some  degree 
distinct,  and  as  needing  to  be  brought 
together  by  external  means.  Neverthe- 
less, by  bringing  down  the  problem  from 
the  heavens  to  the  earth,  and  by  look- 
ing for  its  solution  in  the  verifiable  facts 
of  experience,  the  possibility  of  a  more 
organic  treatment  was  now  given.  On 
this  side  Kant's  thought  has  been  the 
source  of  objective  idealism,  or  Hegelian- 
ism.  And  it  is  this  latter  development, 
as  the  most  direct  and  the  most  important 
outcome  of  Kant's  influence,  that  will  be 
examined  in  the  following  chapter. 


HEGEL 


HEGEL 


'HE  connection  between  the  two 
sides  of  Kant's  doctrine,  his 
analysis  of  the  facts  of  expe- 
rience, and  his  recognition  of  things- 
in-themselves,  was  not  a  logical  one. 
Logically,  as  events  show,  he  ought  to 
have  ceased  to  hold  to  the  latter,  and  it 
was  only  his  strong  feeling  for  reality 
which  prevented  him  from  doing  this. 
It  was  very  quickly  pointed  out,  however, 
that  his  position  was  inconsistent.  The 
idea  of  cause,  he  had  said,  holds  solely 
within  experience ;  it  tells  us  nothing 
whatever  about  things-in-themselves,  and 
is  empty  and  abstract  so  long  as  it  is  not 
supplied  with  the  material  of  sense.  But 
159 


160  Hegel 

why  do  we  believe  in  things-in-themselves 
at  all  ?  Practically  because  the  material  of 
sense  finds  no  explanation  within  experi- 
ence, and  requires  to  be  furnished  from 
without,  or,  in  other  words,  to  have  an 
outside  cause.  This  was  the  assumption 
of  rationalism,  that  the  possibility  of  this 
external  reference  in  knowledge  was  to 
be  explained,  if  at  all,  by  having  re- 
course to  a  deliverance  of  the  rational 
nature ;  and  although  Kant's  principles 
forbade  him  still  to  hold  this  explanation, 
yet  as  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  go  be- 
hind it,  and  inquire  whether  there  might 
not  be  some  different  way  of  reaching  the 
same  result,  he  had  no  other  account 
of  the  process  to  suggest.  And  conse- 
quently, while  he  felt  that  he  was  in  the 
right,  and  to  the  end  refused  to  give  up 
his  belief,  he  really  had  no  answer  to 
make  when  it  was  pointed  out  by  his 
critics  that  he  was  requiring  us  to  hold 
that  we  are  led  to  a  supersensible  reality 
through  the  category  of  cause,  at  the  same 


Hegel  161 

time  that  this  category  is  declared  to  have 
no  possible  application  to  such  a  reality. 

The  main  line  of  development  from 
Kant  was,  therefore,  consistent  in  drop- 
ping things-in-themselves  quietly,  and  in 
confining  itself,  as  Kant  also  had  done  in 
practice,  to  the  reality  of  experience.  It 
will  not  be  necessary  to  trace  the  growth 
of  idealism  through  Kant's  various  suc- 
cessors, but  we  may  pass  at  once  to  the 
last  and  greatest  of  them,  —  to  Hegel 
and  Hegelianism. 

There  has  been  no  more  subtle  and 
baffling  thinker  in  all  the  history  of 
thought  than  Hegel.  Most  of  his  critics, 
in  the  opinion  of  his  followers  at  any  rate, 
have  wholly  missed  his  point,  and  even 
among  those  who  call  themselves  disciples 
there  has  been  a  disheartening  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  what  Hegel  really  meant. 
The  difficulty  has  to  some  extent  been 
due  to  the  fact  that  Hegel  has  never 
taken  the  trouble  to  state,  precisely  and 
unambiguously,  the  peculiarity  of  his  own 


162  Hegel 

point  of  approach  to  philosophical  prob- 
lems, in  its  distinction  from  the  common- 
sense  standpoint,  and  that,  consequently, 
when  we  interpret  his  words  by  the  mean- 
ing they  might  naturally  bear  in  ordinary 
speech,  as  many  of  his  opponents  have 
done,  we  are  landed  in  confusion,  and  are 
able  neither  to  do  justice  to  his  great 
merits,  nor  to  put  our  finger  definitely  on 
his  weaknesses.  In  what  follows  I  shall 
have  to  be  understood  as  giving  my  own 
interpretation  of  Hegel,  which  there  will 
be  no  room,  of  course,  to  substantiate  in 
detail;  and  I  shall  try  to  show  that,  on 
this  view,  Hegel  is  to  be  criticised  on  the 
ground,  not  so  much  that  his  results  are 
untenable,  as  that,  while  they  are  valid 
from  a  certain  standpoint,  that  standpoint 
itself  is  not  the  ultimate  one,  but  requires 
to  be  reinterpreted  in  a  larger  setting. 
We  thus  come  back  again  to  the  definition 
of  metaphysics  as  a  criticism  of  points  of 
view. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Hegel  ac- 


Hegel  163 

cepts  unreservedly  the  position  of  Kant's 
successors,  and  drops  all  reference  to 
things-in-themselves  without  further  cere- 
mony. It  is  self-evident  to  him  that 
philosophy  has  to  do  with  experience,  and 
experience  alone;  and,  indeed,  it  may  be 
^  asked  with  a  good  deal  of  force,  what 
possible  concern  we  can  have  with  any- 
thing that  lies  beyond  experience.  Hegel, 
however,  does  not  agree  with  Kant  in 
holding  that  this  experience  is  the  sub- 
jective experience  of  an  individual;  phi- 
losophy for  him  deals  directly  with  the 
Absolute.  But  what,  then,  does  Hegel 
mean  by  the  Absolute.?  and  what  is  the 
relation  in  which  it  stands  to  Kant's  in- 
dividual experience .?  It  is  just  this  which 
forms  the  crux  of  the  whole  Hegelian 
system,  and  which  it  is  peculiarly  difficult 
to  grasp  so  long  as  we  keep  to  the  ordi- 
nary common-sense  way  of  looking  at  the 
world.  In  trying  to  understand  it,  let  us 
put  ourselves  as  much  as  possible  in 
Hegel's  own  position. 


164  Hegel 

Kant,  as  we  have  seen,  had  made  a  revo- 
lution in  the  method  of  philosophy.  In- 
stead of  regarding  the  world  as  an  existing 
fact,  which  stood  ready  made,  and  only 
waiting  to  be  recognized,  he  had  declared 
that  the  world  is  constructed  by  the  self, 
and  so  had  put  the  self  at  the  centre  of 
the  problems  of  philosophy.  In  doing 
this,  he  was  simply  giving  philosophical 
expression  to  an  intellectual  movement 
which  was  far  more  widespread  than  tech- 
nical philosophy,  and  which  was  repre- 
sented in  the  growing  recognition  that  the 
world  of  reality  which  men  find,  in  the 
first  place,  round  about  and  seemingly 
independent  of  them,  crystallized  in  the 
form  of  political  and  social  institutions, 
and  even  of  scientific  knowledge  and  of 
religious  beliefs,  is  not  a  mere  objective 
fact,  which  is  forced  upon  men  by  external 
authority,  and  to  which  they  have  to  fit 
themselves;  but  that  it  has  all  grown 
directly  out  of  human  needs  and  human 
activities,  to  which  it  must  come  back  if  it 


Hegel  165 

is  to  find  its  explanation  and  its  justifica- 
tion. The  world  of  experience  is  the  crea- 
tion of  man,  and  it  is  a  creation  which  is 
an  essential  part  of  his  nature,  not  some- 
thing which  he  can  take  or  leave  as  he 
pleases.  It  is  not,  however,  created  by- 
man  in  any  conscious  or  arbitrary  way,  as 
the  statement  might  seem  at  first  to  imply. 
Civilization  is  no  conscious  product  of 
individual  self-seeking ;  it  is  something  of 
which  we  can  only  say  that  it  "just  grew." 
This  is  recognized  by  Kant  in  his  doctrine 
of  the  transcendental  unity  of  appercep- 
tion, that  somewhat  mysterious  "  higher 
self,"  which,  by  its  use  of  the  various  cat- 
egories, unconsciously  creates  for  itself 
the  objective  world  to  which  the  empirical 
"  me  "  belongs.  While,  however,  Kant 
gave  expression,  in  his  philosophy,  to  this 
notion  of  the  supremacy  of  the  self,  he 
did  not  succeed  in  working  it  out  and 
stating  it  except  in  a  very  formal  and  in- 
adequate manner.  It  is,  indeed,  only  as 
they  are  bound  together  in  this  "  unity  of 


166  Hegel 

apperception  "  that  the  categories  can  do 
their  work;  in  other  words,  the  action  of 
the  thought  forms  in  creating  an  objective 
world  is  only  possible,  so  long  as  this 
world  forms  part  of  a  unitary  conscious 
whole,  an  experience  of  which  one  part 
can  be  connected  with  another,  for  the 
reason  that  it  all  alike  is  mine.  But  the 
nature  of  this  higher  self  remained  ob- 
scure, and  the  various  categories  were 
left  side  by  side,  with  no  more  vital  rela- 
tionship to  one  another  than  is  implied 
in  their  all  being  alike  connected  with  the 
Ego.  Then,  too,  besides  the  categories 
there  was  the  material  of  sense,  and  this, 
although  it  was  necessary  to  the  reality 
of  experience,  was  regarded  as  coming 
from  a  wholly  different  source.  How, 
now,  could  the  world  of  experience,  which 
the  Ego  creates,  be  given  a  concrete,  not 
a  purely  formal,  unity .?  how  could  the 
self  be  characterized,  not  as  abstract  and 
distinct  from  the  world,  but  through  and  by 
means  of  its  creation.?  —  such,  in  a  general 


Hegel  167 

way,  was  Hegel's  problem.  Or,  put  less 
technically.  What  is  the  principle  of  unity 
in  life  ?  For  with  Hegel  the  purely  ab- 
stract side,  such  as  found  expression  in 
Kant's  analysis  of  the  thought  categories, 
was  not  the  ultimate  problem,  though  it 
was  an  important  part  of  it.  Between 
Kant  and  Hegel  had  come,  for  one 
thing,  the  brilliant  Romantic  movement, 
by  which  the  latter  had  been  influenced ; 
and  it  was  in  those  concrete  products  of 
human  activity  to  which  the  Romanti- 
cists had  called  attention,  art,  religion, 
and  the  other  rich  fruits  of  civilization 
and  culture,  that  Hegel's  final  interest 
lay,  much  more  obviously  than  Kant's 
had  done.  Once  more,  Hegel  did  not 
bother  himself  about  reality  that  exists 
unknown  and  beyond  experience;  what 
he  was  interested  in  was  life  itself.  And 
if,  as  Kant  declared,  the  world  is  the 
creation  of  the  self,  reality  will  be  just 
this  process  of  continuous  creation  which 
life   presents.     The   task    of    philosophy, 


168  Hegel 

therefore,  will  be  to  find,  as  Kant  him- 
self had  failed  to  do,  some  unitary  prin- 
ciple which  the  process  of  reality  reveals, 
and  which  will  enable  us  to  interpret  it. 
But  is,  then,  this  process  one  of  merely 
individual,  or  even  of  human  experience, 
in  the  ordinary  sense?  The  answer  was 
suggested  by  Kant's  own  doctrine  of  the 
transcendental  self.  Is  not  the  world, 
and  mankind,  am  not  I  myself,  only  real 
for  this  more  inclusive  unity  which  knows 
us  all.-*  There  would  be  no  knowledge 
of  an  individual  as  such,  if  he  had  not 
already  come  within  a  conscious  unity 
transcending  his  mere  individuality;  and 
therefore  this  larger  reality,  of  whose 
knowledge  the  individual  forms  only  a 
part,  cannot  be  itself  an  experience  which 
is  merely  individual.  If  the  real  "  I  "  were 
not  larger  than  the  empirical  self,  it  never 
could  know  this  latter  as  part  of  a  more 
inclusive  world.  My  self,  my  true  and 
complete  self,  carries  me,  when  I  come 
to  work  out  its  implications,  far   beyond 


Hegel  169 

the  limits  of  anything  I  can  call  subjec- 
tive; in  the  last  resort,  it  has  relations 
which  are  coextensive  with  the  universe, 
all  of  which  relations  are  essential  to  its 
being.  Or  it  may  perhaps  be  clearer  if 
we  substitute  for  the  word  "  self  "  the  con- 
cept of  "experience,"  since,  after  all,  it 
only  is  the  unity  of  experience  for  which 
this  notion  of  the  "  higher  self "  stands. 
Everything  of  which  we  can  speak  at 
all  is,  in  some  sense  at  least,  an  element 
within  experience,  and  in  this  sense  ex- 
perience extends  far  beyond  the  mere 
subjective  self.  I  am  only  a  point  in  the 
midst  of  the  vastly  larger  world  of  men 
and  things  which  experience  presents. 
And  in  this  way  Hegel  can  answer  Kant's 
claim  that  experience  is  subjective :  how 
can  experience  belong  to  a  self  which  is 
itself  an  element  within  experience }  The 
self  enters  as  an  element  into  experience 
only  under  certain  peculiar  conditions ; 
if,  e.g.,  I  am  engaged  in  a  very  absorb- 
ing  pursuit,    there   is    no   recognition    of 


170  Hegel 

myself,  I  lose  myself,  as  we  say;  and 
consequently  the  self  is  less  fundamental 
than  the  whole  process  out  of  which  it 
arises.  And  this  whole  inclusive  process 
of  experience,  within  which  all  the  spe- 
cial distinctions  which  we  recognize  by 
thought  arise,  is  what  Hegel  means  by 
the  Absolute,  or  God. 

With  this  general  statement  as  to 
Hegel's  standpoint,  we  need  to  consider 
a  little  more  closely  the  relation  which 
his  treatment  of  the  abstract  thought 
categories  bears  to  it.  And  in  order  to 
follow  Hegel's  thought,  let  us  go  back 
again  to  the  results  of  Kant's  inquiry. 
Up  to  Kant's  time,  metaphysicians  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  taking  the  general 
categories  of  abstract  thinking,  such  as 
substance  and  causation,  and  without  any 
special  examination  of  them  had  applied 
them  forthwith  as  an  instrument  for  get- 
ting the  particular  bit  of  information 
about  ultimate  reality  which  each  of  them 
happened  to  afford.     Kant  had  put  phi- 


Hegel  171 

losophy  on  another  track.  Instead,  he 
said,  of  using  your  instrument  at  once, 
you  should  first  examine  it ;  you  should 
turn  your  attention  from  ultimate  exist- 
ence to  the  relation  which  your  thought 
bears  to  the  rest  of  the  experience  with 
which  it  is  connected.  A  start  was  thus 
made  towards  understanding  the  thought 
forms,  not  as  isolated  dicta,  but  as  organi- 
cally related  to  one  another  and  to  life. 
Kant,  however,  as  we  have  said,  had  left 
the  process  of  experience  still  more  or 
less  disjointed;  not  only  were  sense  and 
thought  referred  to  different  principles, 
but  the  different  thought  forms  them- 
selves were  only  very  loosely  connected. 
What  Hegel  set  out  to  do  was  to  make 
the  unity  organic.  Life  is  not  made  up 
of  isolated  acts  of  thought,  each  telling 
you  about  some  particular  item,  but 
is  in  a  real  sense  a  whole.  You  can- 
not, therefore,  understand  any  of  these 
thought  abstractions  which  you  are  con- 
stantly using,  —  being,  quality,   substance 


y 


172  Hegel 

and  attributes,  force,  and  the  like,  —  unless 
you  examine  its  relationships,  see  what 
particular  service  it  performs  in  the  liv- 
ing whole  of  experience,  and  then  inter- 
pret it  with  reference  to  that.  In  his 
Logic,  then,  Hegel  tries  to  show  that 
the  different  categories  which  we  use  in 
thinking  are  thus  connected  with  each 
other  in  a  vital  way,  from  the  most  ab- 
stract of  them,  pure  being,  to  that  which 
is  most  adequate  to  the  nature  of  reality; 
and  that  we  cannot  isolate  any  by  itself, 
and  take  it  out  of  its  connection.  Each 
thought  form,  when  we  examine  it  care- 
fully, is  found  to  imply  all  the  others, 
and  in  the  law  of  their  development 
which  he  detects,  in  accordance  with 
which  they  are  connected  with  one  an- 
other in  a  continuous  growth,  Hegel  dis- 
covers that  principle  of  unity  in  life 
which  is  the  goal  of  his  philosophy,  and 
its  most  characteristic  feature.  Accord- 
ing to  this  law,  stated  for  the  present  in 
a    purely    formal    way,    everything    falls 


Hegel  173 

into  a  general  schema  that  is  made  up  of 
three  terms.  The  first  term,  if  taken  as 
absolute,  and  as  intelligible  in  itself, 
shows  its  inadequacy  by  suddenly  nega- 
ting itself,  and  turning  over  into  its  oppo- 
site; and  then  a  third  term  comes  in  to 
unite  the  first  two  in  a  synthesis  which, 
without  suppressing  either  of  them,  is 
enabled  to  do  justice  to  both,  by  taking 
away  their  independence,  and  reducing 
them  to  mere  elements  or  moments  in 
this  larger  whole. 

But  while  this  general  contention  of 
Hegel's,  that  the  concepts,  or  forms  of 
abstract  thought,  which  we  use,  are  to 
be  understood  only  by  reference  to  their 
place  in  the  whole  of  experience,  may 
not  seem  altogether  unintelligible,  it  is 
not  easy  to  be  quite  sure  what  he  means 
when  he  interprets  this,  apparently,  as  a 
complete  metaphysic,  an  account  of  the 
ultimate  nature  of  reality  itself.  Instead 
of  saying  that  reality  is  experience,  Hegel 
more  often  says  that  reality   is  thought, 


174  Hegel 

and  it  has  accordingly  been  supposed  that 
he  means  by  this  abstract  thought,  to  the 
exclusion  of  sensation,  and  of  immediate 
concrete  life.  Hegel  is  expressly  on  his 
guard  to  deny  that  he  means  by  thought 
ordinary  finite  thinking,  and  so  we  may 
set  this  aside  without  further  remark.  It 
is  easier  to  interpret  him  as  meaning 
that  reality  is  made  up  of  these  abstract 
thought  relations  with  which  the  Logic 
deals,  hypostasized  in  some  fashion,  and 
given  an  independent  existence.  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  are  so  obvi- 
ous that  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon 
them.  What  a  reality  is  that  is  com- 
posed of  relations,  without  anything  to 
relate,  no  one  ever  has  succeeded,  or  ever 
will  succeed,  in  making  plain.  It  is  quite 
impossible  to  drop  out  that  sensational 
element  which  makes  experience  con- 
crete, and  reduce  everything  to  what  an 
eminent  contemporary  thinker,  in  speak- 
ing of  this  interpretation  of  Hegel,  has 
called  an   "unearthly  ballet   of   bloodless 


Hegel  175 

categories."  And,  indeed,  Hegel  has  too 
many  statements  that  are  inconsistent 
with  this  notion  to  afford  us  very  much 
justification  in  attributing  it  to  him. 
While,  however,  he  may  not  hold  that 
there  is  nothing  to  reality  but  abstract 
thought,  yet  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  in- 
terpret him  as  saying  that  at  least  the 
beginning  of  the  process  which  consti- 
tutes reality  is  a  development  of  just 
such  abstract  thought  categories.  He 
expressly  says  that  the  development 
which  he  traces  in  the  Logic,  from  pure 
Being  to  the  Idea  or  Notion — a  develop- 
ment which  deals  entirely  with  abstract 
concepts  —  is  not  anything  that  depends 
upon  .our  thought,  but  is  a  growth  of  the 
subject-matter  itself,  a  growth  of  reality. 
And  we  might  infer  the  same  thing  from 
the  relation  in  which  the  Logic  stands 
to  the  rest  of  Hegel's  system.  There 
hardly  seems  to  be  any  doubt  that  Hegel, 
in  the  latter  part  of  his  system,  at  least, 
intends   to   take  reality,  not  as   anything 


176  Hegel 

that  is  fixed  and  present  once  for  all,  but 
as  the  process  of  development  itself. 
This  notion  of  development  certainly 
seems  essential  when  he  comes  to  deal 
with  Spirit,  i.e.^  with  the  concrete  growth 
of  humanity  as  exemplified  in  social  and 
political  life  and  institutions,  morality, 
art,  religion,  and  the  like.  But  now  in 
the  treatment  which  Hegel  gives,  there  is 
no  break  in  the  continuity  of  the  process 
from  beginning  to  end ;  just  as  one  ab- 
stract category  passes  over  into  another 
in  the  Logic,  so,  when  the  end  is 
reached,  the  supreme  category  passes 
over  continously  into  Nature,  and  Nature 
into  Spirit.  So  that  a  natural  interpreta- 
tion would  be,  that  Hegel  was  actually 
trying  to  develop  reality,  in  its  entirety, 
out  of  mere  abstract  thought,  which  thus 
was  the  beginning  and  presupposition  of 
the  whole.  We  may  perhaps  suspect  that 
Hegel  himself  never  was  quite  clear  about 
the  matter,  and  that  in  his  thought  there 
were    mixed   up    more   motifs   than   one. 


Hegel  \77 

But  however  this  may  be,  it  is,  I  think, 
unfair  to  Hegel  to  make  this  the  real  es- 
sence of  his  doctrine.  There  is  a  far 
more  definite  conception  which  will  ex- 
plain most  of  his  utterances,  and  it  is 
altogether  likely  that  this  is  what  all  the 
time  lay  back  of  his  thought,  even  if  he 
was  not  always  quite  consistent  with  it. 
On  this  interpretation,  what  he  really  had 
in  mind  as  his  absolute  reality  was,  as  has 
already  been  suggested,  not  abstract  logi- 
cal relations,  but  concrete  life.  A  very 
large  part  of  Hegel's  work,  that  which 
comes  under  the  head  of  Philosophy  of 
Spirit,  deals  with  such  concrete  reality  in 
the  realm  of  what  practically  amounts  to 
a  history  of  civilization,  where  he  tries 
to  show  how  the  most  abstract  categories 
are  concretely  embodied;  and  this  is,  at 
any  rate,  not  consistent  with  his  taking 
thought,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  as  literally 
the  sum  and  substance  of  the  world.  It 
would  be  a  fair  interpretation  of  his  mean- 
ing, therefore,  to  treat  the  Logic,  not  as 


i7S  Hegel 

the  starting-point  for  his  Absolute,  but  as 
in  some  sense  the  mechanism  which  is 
involved  in  every  part  of  it.  So  when 
Hegel  says  that  reality  is  thought,  we 
should  understand  him  as  intending  to 
say  that  reality  is  meaning.  When  he 
declares  that  sensation,  or  immediate  ex- 
perience, is  unreal  as  compared  with 
thought,  he  does  not  mean  to  deny  the 
existence  of  sensation  in  favor  of  mere 
thinking,  but  only  to  say  that  in  so  far 
as  experience  is  purely  immediate  and 
unreflective,  in  so  far  as  the  world  comes 
to  us  'simply  as  a  brute  fact,  that  is  forced 
upon  our  senses  without  appealing  to  our 
reason,  it  is  unreal  and  abstract,  not  re- 
ality in  its  fulness ;  and  that  reality  is 
found  in  the  interpreting  of  this,  in  find- 
ing out  its  relations  and  meaning  in  the 
process  of  experience  as  a  whole. 

Let  us,  in  order  to  know  just  what  we 
are  talking  about,  think  of  that  chain  of , 
widening  experience  which  makes  up  our 
own  life.     Such  an  experience  is  a  devel- 


Hegel  179 

opment,  which  is  coming  all  the  time  to 
a  clearer  consciousness  of  its  own  mean- 
ing; and  this  growth,  through  which  ele- 
ments of  experience  that  come  to  us  at 
first  as  mere  facts  which  we  have  to  ac- 
cept, gradually  take  on  value  for  our 
lives,  are  interpreted  in  their  relations,  is 
the  work  -of  thought,  of  reason :  the  more 
rational  life  is,  the  more  it  is  real,  and  it 
is  truly  real  only  as  it  has  thus  been 
rationalized.  If  we  substitute  this  word 
"rational"  in  Hegel's  statement  that  re- 
ality is  thought,  we  shall  have  more 
nearly  what  he  has  in  mind.  We  can  un- 
derstand in  this  way  what  Hegel  means 
when  he  speaks  of  the  development  of 
the  thought  categories  in  the  Logic,  not 
as  a  mere  arbitrary  matter  of  what  we 
think  about  things,  but  as  a  self-develop- 
ment, a  growth  of  reality.  When  we 
take  reality  simply  as  the  process  of  ex- 
perience, the  question  which  concerned 
Kant,  as  to  the  possibility  or  impossibility 
of  our  applying  the  categories  to  a  tran- 


180  Hegel 

scendental  something  beyond,  no  longer 
is  important;  thought  has  its  sole  use  as 
it  stands  for  a  revelation  of  the  meaning 
of  life ;  and  this  constantly  progressive 
self-revelation  is  no  arbitrary  exercise  of 
our  subjective  faculty  of  thinking,  but  a 
necessary  development  of  thought  itself, 
i.e.,  of  an  experience  ever  becoming  more 
rational  and  luminous ;  or,  again,  if  we 
say  that  experience  is  reality,  it  is  a  de- 
velopment of  reality.  This  will  give  a 
concrete  meaning  to  Hegel's  threefold 
schema,  and  his  doctrine  of  negation, 
and  of  the  union  of  contradictories. 
Since  life  is  a  growth,  no  achievement 
can  be  taken  as  final  and  complete  in  ' 
itself;  its  self-sufficiency  has  to  be  denied 
or  negated,  for  by  its  very  success  it  cre- 
ates new  conditions  which  introduce  an- 
tagonisms, and  so  prevent  our  going  on 
in  the  same  way  as  before.  But  that 
does  not  mean  that  it  is  annulled  com- 
pletely, or  that  it  passes  out  of  our  life, 
but  only  that,  on  the  basis  of  it,  we  are 


Hegel  181 

forced  to  find  some  larger  conception  of 
life  that  shall  reconcile  the  jarring  ele- 
ments, while  still  allowing  them  to  con- 
tribute their  own  particular  value  to  the 
result.  The  richness  of  life  is  due  just 
to  its  paradoxes,  to  the  fact  that  it  can 
take  up  these  seemingly  contradictory 
elements  within  itself,  and  by  harmoniz- 
ing, without  destroying  them,  can  make 
them  minister  to  its  own  process  of 
growth. 

The  abstract  thought  categories,  there- 
fore, would  be  the  instruments  by  which 
this  growth  in  experience  is  effected,  and 
they  are  consequently  always  to  be  in- 
terpreted by  reference  to  the  whole  of 
experience  which  is  their  presupposition, 
by  reference  to  the  process  in  which  they 
occur.  Whatever  the  ultimate  interpre- 
tation may  be,  the  justification  of  Hegel's 
inquiries  is  found  in  this,  that,  at  any  rate 
as  we  use  it,  a  thought  form,  such  as 
being,  or  substance,  or  quality,  or  causa- 
tion,  grows  out  of  some  particular  need 


182  Hegel 

of  experience  which  thought  is  trying  to 
meet,  and  that,  consequently,  we  cannot 
take  the  category  as  if  its  value  were  al- 
ready perfectly  known,  but  must  examine 
its  connection  and  the  occasion  which 
gives  rise  to  it.  And  the  results  which 
Hegel  reaches  often  throw  a  great  deal 
of  light  on  the  problems  over  which  phi- 
losophy had  been  disputing  for  centuries 
without  coming  to  a  conclusion.  Take, 
for  an  example,  a  thing  and  its  qualities. 
Instead  of  saying,  as  earlier  philosophers 
had  done,  that  there  is  an  unknown  some- 
thing in  which  qualities  inhere,  or  else 
that  there  is  no  such  thing,  and  that  iso- 
lated qualities  are  the  only  reality,  Hegel 
enables  us  to  see  that  the  terms  are  purely 
relative  to  each  other,  and  that  their  use 
grows  out  of  a  teleological  interest.  What 
we  call  a  single  thing,  whether  an  atom, 
or  a  grain  of  sand,  or  a  sand  heap,  or  a 
world,  is  determined,  practically,  by  the 
particular  end  or  interest  we  have  in  view : 
the  unitary  thing  represents  this  unity  of 


Hegel  183 

end  rather  than  any  metaphysical  under- 
lying existence,  while  qualities  are  the 
various  means  bound  up  with  the  end. 
Or,  again,  the  concept  of  force.  Instead 
of  taking  force  as  an  entity  of  some  sort, 
Hegel  asks  when  it  is  the  concept  is  used ; 
and  he  finds  that  it  is  used  when,  after 
taking  some  element  of  experience  in  an 
isolated  way,  we  discover  that  it  is  not 
thus  isolated,  but  has  relations  with  the 
rest  of  experience,  as  indeed  it  must  have, 
since  it  is  an  element  in  a  single  process ; 
but  instead  of  recognizing  that  this  con- 
nection is  the  original  thing,  and  that  it 
is  only  by  an  abstraction  that  we  set  the 
element  off  by  itself,  we  invent  an  exter- 
nal connection,  force,  to  bridge  over  the 
gulf  our  own  abstracting  thought  has 
made.  In  other  words,  Hegel  explains 
the  terms  with  which  philosophy  deals, 
not  as  ontological  realities,  but  as  tools 
which  we  use  to  meet  the  needs  of  a 
growing  experience.  Reality  is  thought, 
then,   means  simply  this :   that  reality  is 


184  Hegel 

experience  in  a  growing  process  of  real- 
izing its  own  meaning  and  value,  and 
not  content  simply  to  take  itself  as  it 
first  comes,  without  reflection  or  medita- 
tion. And  the  Absolute  is  this  whole 
process  of  growth. 

Instead,  then,  of  being  the  philosopher 
of  abstractions,  Hegel  is  concrete  to  the 
last  degree.  Against  the  abstract  in  his 
own  sense  of  the  term,  that,  namely, 
which  has  still  got  its  meaning  insuffi- 
ciently worked  out,  he  is  indeed  con- 
stantly waging  war.  And  it  is  easy  to 
recognize  the  value  of  his  contention. 
To  say  that  the  meaning  of  life  is  what 
philosophy  is  concerned  with,  is  to  make 
philosophy  practical,  and  is  precisely 
the  statement  with  which  we  started  in 
the  opening  chapter.  In  trying  now  to 
show  how  the  standpoint  fails  to  be  final 
and  satisfactory,  we  should  not  lose  sight 
of  this  very  great  gain. 
.  It  is  already  evident  enough  that  He- 
gel's  method   of  treatment   is,   from   the 


Hegel  185 

standpoint  of  previous  philosophies,  sin- 
gularly elusive  in  its  nature,  and  it  will 
not  be  an  easy  task  to  grasp  it  with  suffi- 
cient firmness  to  see  just  its  relation  to 
our  more  ordinary  way  of  thinking;  but 
if  we  can  succeed  in  doing  this,  it  will 
itself  supply,  essentially,  the  criticism 
which  I  shall  have  to  offer.  And  we 
may  notice,  in  the  first  place,  that  when 
Hegel  finds  his  Absolute-  in  the  self-evi- 
dent reality  of  Experience,  or  Life,  he 
has  no  place  to  give  to  that  which  com- 
mon sense  (^eans  by  the  outer  world, 
when  this  is  thought  of  as  existing  apart 
from  all  human  experience,  as  it  must 
have  existed,  for  instance,  before  sentient 
beings  made  their  appearance  on  the 
earth.  The_  externaL,_jKQrld  can  only 
exist,  for  Hegel,  as  it  comes  within  ex- 
perience ;  and  by  this  Hegel  cannot  in 
consistency  have  reference  to  any  hypo- 
thetical experience  of  an  Absolute  Being 
distinct  from  human  life,  but  he  must 
mean  just  the  experience  which  is  exem- 


186  Hegel 

plified  in  that  gradual  coming  to  a  know- 
ledge of  itself  on  the  part  of  human 
consciousness,  with  which  his  system  is 
concerned.  And  so  the  world,  for  Hegel, 
is  created  along  with  this  process  by  which 
mankind  comes  to  know  it.  The  change 
from  the  Ptolemaic  to  the  Copernican  sys- 
tem was  not  the  subjective  recognition  on 
the  part  of  men  of  a  fact  which  had 
existed  long  before  it  was  thus  discov- 
ered ;  it  represented  a  real  development 
in  the  objective  world,  in  the  only  sense 
in  which  Hegel  can  speak  of  such  a 
world.  Since,  however,  the  reality  of 
the  outer  world  furnishes  a  hard  prob- 
lem in  itself,  it  will  perhaps  be  better 
not  to  insist  upon  this  point,  but  to  con- 
fine our  criticism  to  the  more  verifiable 
facts  of  "experience."  Let  us,  then,  no- 
tice two  quite  distinct  things  to  which 
Hegel's  concept  of  experience  might  be 
taken  to  apply.  There  is,  first,  what  Kant 
called  the  individual  experience.  If  I 
look  back  over  my  own  life,  it  seems  to 


J-Iegel  187 

be  made  up  of  a  set  of  concrete  activi- 
ties, or  experiences,  which  form  a  defi- 
nitely limited  whole.  It  begins  with  my 
first  beginnings  of  consciousness  and  will 
end  with  my  death,  and  it  is  all  along 
distinct  from  the  experiences  of  other 
men ;  they  may,  indeed,  know  more  or 
less  about  it,  but  no  one  but  myself  can 
live  it.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may 
apply  the  term  to  the  experience  of  the 
race,  to  the  sphere  of  universal  history, 
which  also  is  a  development,  and  of  which 
what  I  call  my  life  is  now  only  a  part.  It 
is  clear  that  in  these  two  uses  the  term 
"experience"  is  meant  to  stand  for  two 
distinct  things,  and  that  in  both  it  is  used 
quite  intelligibly. 

What  marks,  now,  are  there  which,  on 
the  ordinary  view,  distinguish  my  expe- 
rience from  the  experience  of  mankind 
which  is  expressed  in  universal  history } 
For  one  thing,  while  my  experience  is 
objective,  while,  that  is,  it  involves  other 
men   and   things   beside    myself,    yet   we 


188  Hegel 

generally  suppose  that  it  also  has  a  sen- 
sational element  which  makes  it  in  an 
equally  true  sense  unique  and  unsharable. 
Every  experience  of  mine  is  a  particular 
fact,  which  as  such  is  distinct  in  existence 
from  all  the  other  facts  in  the  universe, 
however  closely  it  may  be  related  to  them. 
If  two  men  are  looking  at  the  same  object, 
the  similarity  of  the  reference  does  not 
prevent  the  first  man's  experience  from 
being  quite  other  than  the  second  man's, 
for  the  two  sensations  involved  are  facts 
which  are  forever  distinct.  And  the  con- 
tinuity of  experience  which  this  sensa- 
tional element  gives,  and  which  enables 
us  to  call  a  certain  set  of  experiences 
ours,  while  others,  again,  are  not  ours, 
we  do  not  usually  imagine  to  extend  be- 
yond the  limits  of  an  individual  life.  My 
life  is  connected,  indeed,  with  the  history 
of  the  world;  the  influence  which  the 
world  exerts,  both  through  heredity  and 
through  my  spiritual  environment,  is 
enough   to   show   this;   but   there   is   not 


Hegel  189 

supposed  to  be  a  continuity  of  conscious- 
ness of  the  same  nature  as  that  which 
is  exhibited  in  my  individual  experience 
from  day  to  day.  On  the  contrary,  social 
development  is  made  up  of  a  host  of  such 
unitary  conscious  lives,  each,  as  immediate 
experiences,  separate  from  the  others, 
though  united  with  them  through  a  com- 
munity of  interests  and  purposes,  and  a 
relation  to  a  common  world ;  there  is  not 
supposed  to  be  any  conscious  realization 
of  this  unity  except  on  the  part  of  differ- 
ent individuals,  whereas  it  is  an  essential 
element  in  what  we  commonly  understand 
by  a  real  unity  of  experience,  that  it 
should  on  its  own  part  immediately  rec- 
ognize itself  as  such.  This  more  inclu- 
sive reality  comes,  indeed,  in  a  way  within 
the  life  of  the  individual,  but  it  is  as  some- 
thing which  also  is  known  to  exist  on  its 
own  account. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact,  then,  that  in 
common  thought  we  mean  two  very  dif- 
ferent things  when  we  speak  of  an  indi- 


190  Hegel 

vidual's  experience,  and  when  we  speak 
of  that  growth  of  experience  which  is 
shown  in  the  history  of  mankind ;  and 
that  both  of  these,  moreover,  seem  to 
be  concrete  realities,  of  which  philosophy 
has  to  take  account.  We  are,  therefore, 
in  a  position  now  to  ask  what  attitude 
Hegel  adopts  towards  these  two  different 
uses  of  the  term,  and  the  distinction  we 
invariably  recognize  between  them ;  and 
we  have  a  right  to  demand  that  he 
should  not  confuse  or  ignore  that 
difference. 

Let  us  notice  once  more  what  Hegel's 
essential  object  is.  What  he  is  after  is 
to  show  that  those  distinctions  which 
had  been  taken  to  denote  hard  and  fast 
separations,  in  reality  do  nothing  of  the 
kind;  but  that  anything  we  can  fasten 
on  reveals,  when  its  implications  are 
worked  out,  the  unity  which  is  its  pre- 
supposition. This  unity  is  the  reality  of 
development  in  self-conscious  experience. 
Instead  of  having  one   reality  God,    and 


Hegel  191 

another  reality  the  world,  and  still  other 
separate  realities,  a  host  of  individual 
selves,  we  have  just  the  one  unity  of 
experience,  which  would  correspond  to 
God ;  and  everything  else  can  be  shown 
to  have  its  existence  within  this  unitary 
conscious  process,  and  to  possess  no  inde- 
pendent reality  at  all.  Now,  in  general, 
the  criticism  I  shall  make  is  this,  that 
Hegel  confuses  the  two  meanings  of 
experience  which  have  just  been  noticed. 
I  shall  try  to  show  that  he  gets  his  point 
of  view,  his  method,  from  what  every- 
body else  calls  the  individual  experience, 
and  that  with  reference  to  such  experience 
his  results  are  valid;  but  then  he  trans- 
fers this,  without  very  clearly  indicating 
how,  to  something  quite  different,  the 
universe  of  reality,  and  in  this  sphere 
his  statements  will  no  longer  hold  true. 
That  Hegel  gets  his  method  from  an 
analysis  of  individual  experience  is  shown, 
in  the  first  place,  by  the  relation  in  which 
he  stands  to  Kant.     Kant  represents  the 


192  Hegel 

common-sense  standpoint,  and  he  is  care- 
ful to  state  that  the  experience  he  is  talk- 
ing about,  within  which  the  categories 
apply,  is  the  subjective  experience  of  the 
individual,  taken,  of  course,  as  an  intel- 
ligible unity,  and  not  as  a  mere  string  of 
conscious  states  in  time ;  and  Hegel,  what- 
ever his  interpretation,  is  evidently  in  his 
Logic  working  with  just  the  same  facts. 
Now  simply  to  ignore  Kant's  distinction 
between  individual  experience  and  the 
larger  world  of  reality,  as  Hegel  does, 
and  to  transfer  what  is  meant  of  the  one 
directly  to  the  other,  is  a  proceeding 
which  renders  it  forever  impossible  to 
justify  to  common  sense  the  results  at 
which  we  arrive.  We  have  a  definite 
idea  of  what  we  mean  by  each,  and  if 
any  one  refuses  to  be  content  with  the 
distinction  as  an  ultimate  one,  he  at 
least  owes  it  to  common  sense  to  keep 
clear  the  fact  that,  in  any  case,  the  dis- 
tinction is  made.  Let  us,  then,  examine 
again  what  Kant  and  other  philosophers. 


Hegel  193 

as  well  as  the  majority  of  men  who  are 
not  philosophers,  call  the  conscious  life 
experience  of  an  individual,  ignoring  for 
the  moment  all  other  reality  whatever. 
And  it  will  be  seen  that  Hegel's  state- 
ments apply  to  it  very  closely.  Such  an 
experience  is  a  unity,  or  else  I  could  not 
speak  of  it  as  my  life ;  and  it  is  a  unity 
of  development.  It  is  a  unity,  again, 
which  is  the  presupposition  of  all  those 
distinctions  which  I  call  myself,  and 
other  selves,  and  the  external  world;  or 
to  put  it,  according  to  the  common-sense 
notion,  more  exactly,  any  recognition^  or 
knowledge,  of  an  object,  or  of  myself 
and  other  selves,  must  be  explained  by 
reference  to  the  process  of  experience 
of  which  this  recognition  is  a  part,  and 
by  definition  we  are  ignoring  anything 
that  may  be  implied  in  a  self  or  object 
beyond  this  immediate  fact  of  experience. 
This  is  nothing  but  the  modern  method 
of  psychology,  which  is  based  on  the 
postulate,   that,    in    order    to    understand 


194  Hegel 

the  conscious  life,  we  must  start  with  its 
unity,  not  with  the  diversity  of  its  separate 
elements.  Any  object,  in  so  far  as  it  comes 
within  this  experience,  arises  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  experience  as  a  whole,  and 
disappears  when  it  is  no  longer  required. 
I  do  not  as  a  rule  take  notice  of  an 
object  as  such,  unless  it  is  connected 
with  what  I  am  interested  in,  and  this 
interest  stands  for  a  wider  reach  of  ex- 
perience than  the  mere  perception  of 
the  object  does,  and  is  needed  in  order 
to  account  for  it.  So  also  my  neighbor, 
or  even  myself,  as  elements  in  my  ex- 
perience, are  only  parts  of  a  whole,  and 
they  come  and  go  according  to  psy- 
chological laws  which,  in  the  last  resort, 
depend  upon  the  one  life  process.  That  en- 
tire panorama  which  passes  before  my  gaze 
when  I  think  of  my  life  experience,  from 
its  most  indefinite  beginnings  in  the  infant 
consciousness  to  the  full  flow  of  life  in 
manhood,  a  panorama  wherein  every  con- 
ceivable sort  of  reality  is  represented,  is 


Hegel  195 

the  expression  of  a  single  process,  which 
has  to  be  regarded  as  a  unity  before  we 
can  explain  psychologically  any  of  the 
particular  elements  within  it.  And,  again, 
it  is  in  such  an  experience  as  this  that  the 
thought  categories  which  Hegel  discusses 
in  the  Logic  must  find  their  application. 
Hegel,  as  we  saw,  no  longer  found  the 
value  of  the  categories,  as  the  rationalist 
had  done,  in  their  ability  to  give  us  infor- 
mation about  noumenal  reality,  but  rather 
in  the  practical  use  which  they  serve  in 
rationalizing  experience.  And  moreover, 
he  declares  that  the  development  which 
he  traces  is  a  real  development,  and  not  a 
mere  matter  of  our  subjective  thought. 
Now  it  is  possible  to  interpret  Hegel's 
treatment  in  the  Logic  as  if  he  meant  to 
say  that  reality  already  exists  complete,  jn 
a  form  which  reveals  within  itself  these 
thought  relationships  with  which  the  Logic 
deals ;  and  that  they  form  so  thoroughly 
articulated  a  whole  that,  if  we  take  the 
very  simplest  category,  we  find  ourselves 


196  Hegel 

continually  led  on  and  on  by  threads  of 
conneetion,  until  at  last  we  get  intellectual 
satisfaction  only  when  we  have  arrived  at 
the  completed  system.  But  if  we  accept 
this  interpretation,  we  have  to  admit  that 
after  all  there  is  no  movement  in  reality 
itself,  since  this  exists  complete  from  the 
start,  and  that  the  only  development  is  in 
our  ideas  about  reality,  and  is  due  to  our 
wholly  unjustifiable  procedure  in  attempt- 
ing in  the  first  place  to  tear  away  one  single 
element  of  existence  from  the  connection 
in  which  alone  it  is  real,  and  to  set  it  off 
by  itself.  But  this  seems  to  be  doing  just 
what  Hegel  warns  us  not  to  do,  reducing 
the  development,  namely,  to  a  mere  sub- 
jective process  of  thinking  about  the  uni- 
verse. And  if  we  give  up  the  idea  of  de- 
velopment here,  we  must  do  it  everywhere 
else  also,  and  without  the  idea  of  develop- 
ment, Hegel  is  no  longer  Hegel.  How 
can  we  retain,  then,  in  Hegel's  treatment 
of  the  categories,  the  idea  of  growth  as  an 
essential  element  .'*     We  have  seen  that  if 


Hegel  197 

we  take  him  too  literally,  we  must  think  of 
the  Logic  as  the  actual  beginning  of  the 
process  which  constitutes  the  Absolute; 
and  this  notion  of  thought  categories  de- 
veloping by  themselves  in  a  vacuum  is 
much  too  subversive  of  our  customary 
mental  habits  to  account  for  the  real  and 
practical  value  of  Hegel's  results.  The 
only  alternative  seems  to  be,  as  has  been 
suggested,  to  suppose  that  Hegel  has  in 
mind  that  actual  growth  in  concrete  expe- 
rience which,  since  it  is  a  rationalization  of 
life,  can  only  be  effected  by  using  the 
thought  categories  as  its  tools;  and  that 
he  is  trying  to  show  the  part  which  these 
various  thought  instruments  play  in  the 
unitary  process  of  life.  Such  a  progres- 
sive rationalization  of  experience  tnust  in- 
volve a  corresponding  evolution  in  the 
complexity  of  the  categories  which  are 
used,  and  so  these  get  their  movement 
from  the  living  growth  in  experience 
which  they  subserve.  But  now  thought, 
and  so  the  thought  categories,  in  so  far  as 


198  Hegel 

it  serves  the  purposes  of  growth  in  expe- 
rience, is  used  only  to  meet  particular  sit- 
uations in  which  development  is  called 
for;  and  since  Hegel  had  access  to  no 
kind  of  reality  that  other  men  also  were 
not  in  possession  of,  there  was  no  place 
where  he  could  look  to  find  the  use  of  his 
categories  embodied,  when  he  left  gen- 
eralities and  came  down  to  the  definite 
facts  of  life,  except  in  concrete,  special 
experiences;  and  it  is  such  definite, 
concrete  experiences,  in  Kant's  meaning 
again,  which  belong  to  the  life  of  the 
individual. 

Clearly,  however,  it  cannot  be  such  an 
experience  as  this  which  Hegel  has  in- 
tended for  his  Absolute.  The  amount  of 
conscious  activity  which  we  are  thus  able 
to  bring  into  a  unitary  connection  is  com- 
paratively scanty.  The  rounded  whole  of 
experience  which  I  call  mine  of  yesterday 
connects  with  experience  of  the  days  and 
months  and  years  before,  but  as  I  go 
further  back   the   stream   continually  nar- 


Hegel  199 

rows-,  and  it  only  takes  a  few  years  to 
bring  it  to  an  end.  Similarly,  I  can  go  on 
in  imagination  into  the  future,  but  here 
again  the  whole  thing,  so  far  as  human 
knowledge  goes,  is  ended  with  my  death. 
In  order  to  get  beyond  solipsism,  Hegel 
has  to  mean,  and  evidently  he  does  mean, 
what  common  sense  has  in  mind  in  the 
growth  of  experience  in  the  human  race, 
from  the  beginnings  of  history  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  —  a  reality  of  which  my  experience 
is  only  a  very  small  part.  And  the  only 
manner  in  which  it  seems  easy  to  account 
for  the  off-hand  way  in  which  Hegel  appar- 
ently passes  from  one  conception  to  the 
other,  using  them  interchangeably  as  suits 
his  purpose,  is  to  suppose  that  he  has 
failed  to  note  what  is  for  common  sense  a 
very  important  distinction.  We  have  seen 
that  the  individual  experience  is  objec- 
tively constituted,  that  there  are  represen- 
ted in  it,  namely,  all  those  elements  which 
are  to  be  found  in  the  larger  reality  of 
which  it  is  a  part  —  the  world  of  external 


200  Hegel 

things,  the  existence  of  men  and  nations,  the 
facts  of  history,  and  of  the  growth  of  civili- 
zation. Otherwise,  of  course,  we  should  be 
unable  to  talk  about  these  things.  And  it 
looks  as  if,  on  account  of  this,  Hegel  had 
assumed  that  when  we  talk  of  experience 
such  as  Kant  had  meant,  a  set  of  particu- 
lar experiences  in  which  the  world  and 
history  are  represented  in  terms  of  know- 
ledge^  we  were  by  that  very  fact  bringing 
the  world  and  history  themselves  into  this 
same  unity  of  experience ;  and  that  no  dis- 
tinction, accordingly,  needed  to  be  ad- 
mitted, such  as  we  have  tried  to  establish 
above.  The  presence  of  a  reference  to,  a 
representation  of,  realities  within  a  unitary 
process,  is  taken  as  sufficient  proof  that 
the  realities  themselves  are  connected,  and 
connected  in  just  the  same  way.  Because, 
in  a  state  of  consciousness  which  we  call  a 
knowing  state,  the  object  necessarily  im- 
plies a  subject, — which  simply  means,  in 
other  words,  that  if  I  am  to  know  an  ob> 
ject,  the  reference  to,  the  fact  of  meaning 


Hegel  201 

this  object,  must  come  within  a  unitary- 
consciousness,  whose  being  a  unity  enables 
me  to  call  it  mine,  —  it  therefore  is  con- 
cluded that  the  object  referred  to,  which  is 
quite  a  different  matter,  must  be  a  part  of 
this  same  unitary  consciousness.  But  this, 
as  was  said  above,  is  to  ignore  a  very  vital 
difference,  the  difference  between  experi- 
encing, and  knowing.  In  so  far  as  the  world 
is  actually  a  part  of  that  unity  of  experience 
which  Kant  had  in  mind,  it  has  no  exist- 
ence when  we  cease  to  be  conscious  of  it ; 
when  we  mean  the  real  world,  however,  we 
do  not  speak  of  experiencing  it  directly, 
but  of  knowing  it,  and  knowledge  implies 
the  separate  existence  of  the  world  outside 
the  unity  of  experience  in  which  the  know- 
ledge of  it  plays  a  part.  An  object  or  a 
self,  as  a  part  of  experience,  is  only  a  ref- 
erence to  a  concrete  reality  which  has  its 
own  existence;  and  in  this  existence  it  is 
not  experienced,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
can  speak  of  experience,  but  only  known. 
My  neighbor's  actual  thoughts  and  sensa- 


202  Hegel 

tions  and  feelings,  whatever  makes  up  con- 
cretely his  life,  are  not  present  in  that  ex- 
perience of  mine  in  which  my  neighbor 
plays  a  part :  this  as  an  experience  is  just 
a  reference  to  the  real  neighbor,  who  is  all 
the  time  enjoying  his  own  life.  So  when 
I  think  of  my  own  self  even,  and  so  my 
self  forms  an  element  of  experience,  this 
real  self  of  actual  experiencing  lies  in  the 
past  or  future,  and  what  is  now  actually 
present  is  an  allusion  to  it.  It  is  impos- 
sible, in  other  words,  to  keep  out  of  know- 
ledge this  transcendent  reference  to  reali- 
ties beyond  the  knowing  experience  itself, 
and,  in  the  case  of  external  objects  and  of 
other  selves  at  least,  having  no  such  con- 
nection with  it  that  one  can  be  shown  to 
grow  out  of  the  other,  and  to  form  with  it 
a  unitary  whole.  The  knowledge  of  my 
neighbor  as  an  experience  forms  an  actual 
element  in  the  unity  of  experience  which 
makes  up  my  life ;  the  neighbor  who  is 
thus  known,  however,  does  not,  so  far  as 
appearance  goes,  enter  into  such  a  unity. 


Hegel  203 

Will  it,  then,  still  be  possible  in  any 
way  for  Hegel  to  maintain,  of  reality  as 
a  whole,  that  unity  which  he  declares  to 
be  a  certain  and  transparent  fact?  It  is 
not,  in  the  first  place,  at  all  clear  that 
Hegel  can  even  get  out  of  solipsism,  and 
justify  that  which  common  sense  means 
by  reality  in  the  larger  sense.  Since 
Hegel  does  not  recognize  the  external 
reference  in  knowledge,  but  only  know- 
ledge as  an  immediate  experience,  it  does 
not  appear  how,  if  he  keeps  to  such  ex- 
perience as  can  be  verified,  he  can  ever 
get  back  of  what  common  sense  calls  his 
own  life.  Any  object  in  the  external 
world  is,  for  Hegel,  exhausted  in  its 
value  for  experience;  while  it  is  only 
by  taking  objects  as  having  an  existence 
of  their  own,  that  we  are  enabled  to  get 
back  to  history  at  all,  in  any  sense  in 
which  this  also  is  not  exhausted  in  our 
own  special  unity  of  experience.  But 
without  dwelling  upon  this,  let  us  sup- 
pose that  we  have   in   some  way  got  at 


204  Hegel 

that  which  ordinary  people  mean  by 
the  growth  of  experience  as  represented 
in  history  as  a  whole;  are  we  any  the 
better  off? 

It  may  be  said  at  once  that  there  is  a 
certain  application  of  his  principles  which 
Hegel  makes  to  the  development  of  soci- 
ety, and  makes  very  successfully.  This 
has  to  do  with  the  tracing  of  those  gen- 
eral social  movements  which  make  up 
the  growth  of  civilization.  The  laws 
which  govern  the  transitions  of  social 
life  from  the  savage  state  up  to  modern 
industrial  society,  the  changes  by  which 
democracy  is  evolved  from  a  primitive  des- 
potism, all  the  movements  whereby  the 
spiritual  acquisitions  of  humanity  crystal- 
lize into  institutions,  which  play  their  part 
on  the  stage  of  history,  only  to  give  place 
in  time  to  other  and  more  adequate  ones,  — 
facts  of  this  sort  very  naturally  will  show 
a  connection  with  those  principles  which 
govern  the  growth  of  the  individual  life, 
for  the  reason  that  social  life  is  real  only 


Hegel  205 

in  so  far  as  it  is  embodied  in  the  con- 
crete experiences  of  individuals.  But 
while  the  results  which  such  a  method 
can  give  are  sufficient  for  sociology,  and 
are  of  very  great  value  in  their  place, 
they  do  not  settle  the  metaphysical 
question  as  to  what  relation  these  so- 
called  individual  lives,  as  concrete  and 
sensational  facts,  bear  to  the  social  whole, 
and,  more  ultimately,  to  the  universe.  As 
applied  to  social  growth,  the  principles  of 
which  we  now  are  talking  leave  the  ap- 
parent reality  and  separateness  of  indi- 
vidual lives  out  of  their  account;  they 
profess  to  deal  only  with  general  move- 
ments, which  abstract  from  particular 
men  and  women.  But  now  the  absolute 
reality,  or  God,  is  for  Hegel  a  reality 
which  is  supposed  to  include,  in  an  intel- 
ligible way,  all  other  reality  within  its 
own  life,  and  this  means  that  it  includes 
finite  selves  as  well.  It  is,  therefore,  a 
vital  point  in  Hegel's  theory  that  this  con- 
nection should  be  rendered  perfectly  clear. 


206  Hegel 

We  have  seen  that  the  relation  of 
the  individual  experience  to  the  recog- 
nition of  selves  as  they  enter  into  it, 
furnishes  just  such  a  conception  as 
Hegel  is  looking  for ;  taken  in  this  way, 
as  a  reference,  not  as  the  concrete  reality 
referred  to,  the  self  has  no  existence  ex- 
cept as,  back  of  it,  there  is  implied  the 
one  unitary  experience  to  which  it  be- 
longs. And  this  seems  to  be  the  con- 
ception on  which  Hegel  actually  relies. 
It  is  this  concept  of  experience,  Kant's 
individual  experience,  which  alone  is  so 
obviously  a  unity  for  us  that  we  can  as- 
sume it  without  further  proof.  It  is  only 
when  it  is  applied  to  the  psychological 
origin  of  such  references  within  individ- 
ual experience,  the  origin  of  our  know- 
ledge of  things,  not  the  origin  of  the 
things  themselves,  that  the  argument 
which  has  been  already  noticed  is  suffi- 
cient, the  argument  that  since  everything, 
the  individual  included,  arises  for  us  only 
as  an  element  within  experience,  we  can- 


Hegel  207 

not  make  experience  itself  belong  to  that 
which  only  is  a  part  of  it.  A  knowledge 
of  myself  can,  indeed,  arise  only  within 
experience,  but  that  does  not  prevent  the 
experience  from  still  being  mine,  individ- 
ually; for  what  I  mean  by  myself  is  just 
the  whole  concrete  unity  of  experience, 
within  which  the  knowledge  is  an  ele- 
ment, a  conscious  unity  which  experi- 
ences only  itself,  but  which  knows  itself 
and  a  great  many  other  things  besides. 
Accordingly  there  is  at  the  start  a  pre- 
sumption that  the  notion  will  not  con- 
tinue to  apply  to  the  wider  sphere  of 
reality,  if  we  keep  clear  the  distinction 
which  common  sense  draws,  and  do  not, 
as  Hegel  does,  allow  the  two  to  be 
merged  together. 

It  must  of  course  be  admitted  freely 
that  there  is  some  sense  in  which  the  in- 
dividual is  to  be  regarded  as  an  element 
in  the  larger  life  of  the  world,  as  having 
its  place  fixed  and  its  meaning  deter- 
mined by  the  part  it  plays  in  the   econ- 


208  Hegel 

omy  of  the  universe.  But  it  is  not  a 
question  as  to  whether  this  is  true  in 
some  sense,  but  whether  it  is  true  in 
the  particular  sense  which  Hegel  asserts, 
whether,  that  is,  the  individual  and  God 
have  a  relation,  not  of  independent  per- 
sonalities, but  of  such  mutual  implication 
that  one  is  a  mere  moment  in  the  life  of 
the  other,  not  separate  from  it  in  any 
degree.  Is,  in  other  words,  the  ultimate 
reality,  God,  of  a  nature  which  is  ade- 
quately expressed  in  the  self-evident  re- 
ality of  Experience,  or  Consciousness,  or 
Life,  which  thus  is  made  more  funda- 
mental than  any  self  which  is  conscious, 
which  experiences  and  lives  ? 

If  we  look  to  the  world  on  its  physical 
side,  as  it  is  interpreted  by  the  theory 
of  evolution;  we  do  get  a  suggestion  of 
the  unity  we  are  in  search  of.  Every 
step  in  the  process  of  evolution  has  its 
interpretation  by  reference  to  the  whole 
line  of  development ;  each  physical  move- 
ment  has   its   vital   connection   with    the 


Hegel  209 

whole  world  mechanism,  and  involves 
shiftings  of  energy  throughout  the  entire 
fabric,  which,  again,  are  connected  con- 
tinuously with  similar  transformations  in 
the  past  and  future.  But  such  a  devel- 
opment is  what  we  call  a  physical  fact, 
and  of  course  we  cannot  transform  it 
without  further  ceremony  into  a  fact  of 
consciousness,  unless  we  are  ready  to  as- 
sert that  development  of  which,  through 
knowledge,  we  are  conscious,  means  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing  as  a  conscious  de- 
velopment, and,  therefore,  can  be  used 
interchangeably  with  it. 

We  need,  then,  not  simply  the  concept 
of  a  physical  development,  but  of  one 
which  is  conscious  of  itself  and  its  own 
meaning.  But  even  if  we  were  to  take 
the  external  world  as  such  a  conscious 
development,  this  would  not  answer  the 
problem  we  are  now  considering;  for  while 
the  physical  activities  of  our  bodies  would 
form  part  of  this  development,  there  would 
still  remain  our  conscious  lives,  those  units 


210  Hegel 

of  self-conscious  experience  which  we 
call  finite  selves,  and  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  have  enough  apparent  separateness 
from  the  world  and  from  one  another, 
enough  of  an  existence  of  their  own,  to 
make  it  a  very  real  problem  how,  in  their 
case,  the  more  inclusive  unity  could  still 
be  maintained.  One  way  of  doing  this, 
and  perhaps  the  most  obvious  one,  would 
be,  not  by  denying  the  fact  either  of  the 
individual  consciousness  or  of  the  wider 
world  consciousness  in  any  way,  but  only 
by  taking  the  supposed  limitation  of  the 
former  as  an  illusion,  and  by  regarding  it 
as  forming,  when  we  get  back  of  appear- 
ance to  reality,  a  continuous  fabric  with 
the  rest  of  existence,  an  element  in  the 
whole  just  as  a  single  sensation  is  an 
element  in  the  conscious  unity  of  our  own 
lives.  This  is  a  theory  which  will  need  to 
be  considered  later ;  but  if  we  keep  to  the 
interpretation  which  has  been  suggested 
in  the  present  chapter,  it  is  not  the  answer 
which  Hegel  himself  would  make.     Hegel 


Hegel  211 

requires  something  more  than  that  a  finite 
self  should  reflect,  in  a  decidedly  inade- 
quate way,  the  meaning  of  reality  as  it 
already  exists  along  with,  and  more  inclu- 
sive than,  the  self ;  he  requires  a  conscious 
unity  of  growth,  wherein  every  activity 
which,  by  abstraction,  we  call  a  particular 
activity,  in  reality  sums  up  the  whole 
process  so  far  as  it  has  gone  as  yet,  is  the 
whole  at  that  particular  stage.  There  is 
no  single  activity  that  can  be  looked  at  in 
any  other  way  than  as  a  unitary  conscious 
whole  in  a  particular  expression ;  it  does 
not  simply  copy  a  more  perfect  reality 
which  already  exists,  but  is  itself  a  con- 
dition of  this  more  perfect  reality,  a  step 
in  the  development  which  constitutes  it. 

And  if  we  keep  to  the  facts  of  what 
everybody  calls  conscious  experience,  as 
Hegel  is  obliged  to  do,  we  can  see,  again, 
that  the  conception  may  be  made  to  apply 
to  the  experience  of  an  individual,  but  fails 
us  just  as  soon  as  we  take  it  beyond  this 
limited   sphere.     Let   us   take   as   an   ex- 


212  Hegel 

ample  the  active  attempt  to  solve  a  prob- 
lem in  geometry.  This  is  an  experience 
which  forms  a  whole,  and  which,  so  far  as 
its  own  consciousness  is  concerned,  ex- 
cludes for  the  time  being  all  the  rest  of 
the  world.  It  is,  however,  an  experience 
which  is  not  accomplished  all  at  once, 
but  which  in  its  accomplishment  passes 
through  a  series  of  connected  stages. 
Now  if  we  take  any  one  particular  stage, 
the  act,  say,  of  drawing  a  line,  we  may 
maintain  in  an  intelligible  way  that  this 
act  is  the  experience  taken  at  a  particular 
point.  Just  at  that  moment  it  is  the  whole 
thing;  the  past  and  future  exist  only  as 
summed  up  in  it ;  and  this  is  possible  be- 
cause, as  a  stage  in  the  whole,  the  mean- 
ing of  the  entire  act  is  expressing  itself  in 
it.  We  should  not  draw  this  particular 
line  except  as  we  were  governed  by  what 
we  had  already  done,  and  by  what  we 
were  still  going  to  do. 

And  this  seems  to  be  the  only  definite 
and  verifiable  way  in  which  Hegel's  re- 


Hegel  213 

quirements  are  capable  of  being  met.  But 
if  we  transfer  this  to  anything  else  than 
such  concrete  experiences  as  solving  a 
problem  would  be,  we  find  that  the  anal- 
ogy breaks  down.  Drawing  the  line  is 
literally  the  whole  thing  at  that  particular 
point ;  there  is  more  that  is  past,  and  more 
that  is  to  follow,  but  just  at  this  moment 
it  exhausts  the  field.  So  we  may  admit, 
too,  that  the  whole  experience  of  solving 
the  problem  is  part  of  a  larger  unity  which 
extends  before  and  after  it,  of  a  larger 
purpose  which  the  solution  serves,  and 
that  at  just  this  point  it  is  the  larger  pur- 
pose ;  and  so  we  may  go  on  till  we  reach 
the  unity  of  the  life  experience  as  a  whole. 
But  the  larger  reality  of  which  such  a 
unity  can  be  predicated  transcends  the 
special  phase  always  in  the  direction  of 
the  past  and  future,  and  never  is  some- 
thing that  is  contemporaneous  with  it,  or 
else  the  latter  could  not  be  said  literally  to 
be  reality,  but  could  only  be  a  part  of  it, 
and  the  other  part  would  have  to  be  recog- 


214  Hegel 

nized  as  having  a  separate  existence  with 
reference  to  it.  So  that  there  are  only 
two  courses  for  Hegel  to  take.  Either  he 
must  say  that  any  concrete  experience 
that  forms  a  conscious  unity,  such  as  the 
experience  of  solving  a  problem  in  geom- 
etry, or  of  walking,  or  of  eating,  does  at 
that  particular  moment  exhaust  the  reality 
of  the  world,  —  and  then  there  is  nothing 
to  choose  between  him  and  the  subjective 
idealist ;  or  else  he  must  admit  that,  along 
at  the  same  time  with  this  particular  ex- 
perience, and  external  to  it  so  far  as  its 
own  consciousness  of  itself  is  concerned, 
other  reality  exists,  at  least  the  reality  of 
other  men's  experience,  if  not  the  reality 
of  the  external  world.  But  if  at  the  same 
moment  different  facts  of  experience  exist 
which  are  mutually  unconscious  of  one 
another,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  see  how 
they  form  a  unity  such  as  is  expressed  by 
calling  them  moments  in  a  single  con- 
scious process;  that,  again,  is  a  unity 
which    will   apply   to   a   single  stream  of 


Hegel  215 

experience  like  an  individual  life,  where 
each  phase,  so  long  as  it  continues,  is 
literally  all  that  exists ;  but  some  other 
conception  is  required  to  account  for  the 
connection  of  two  active  experiences  which, 
without  either  recognizing  the  other,  are 
going  on  at  precisely  the  same  time.  For 
we  are  here  shut  off  from  a  claim  which 
another  philosopher  might  perhaps  make, 
that  implicitly,  though  not  consciously, 
all  the  rest  of  reality  is  involved ;  for 
if  the  unity  of  conscious  experience  is 
the  definition  of  reality,  except  as  it 
comes  within  a  conscious  unity  nothing 
can  exist. 

To  refer  back,  then,  to  the  statement 
which  was  made  in  starting,  Hegel  is 
not  wrong  in  making  reality  consist  in 
meaning,  but  only  in  interpreting  mean- 
ing to  the  exclusion  of  that  which  is 
meant.  What  constitutes  the  reality  of 
any  individual  experience  is,  indeed,  its 
meaning,  its  relation  to  the  whole  uni- 
verse  of   reality   of   which   it   is   a    part. 


216  Hegel 

But  this  implies  not  simply  the  particular 
experience  and  its  own  realization  of  its 
value,  but  it  also  implies  the  existence, 
on  its  own  account,  of  all  that  other 
reality  without  which  the  meaning  would 
disappear;  and  this  side  of  existence,  of 
reality  which  is  known  without  being  act- 
ually present  in  the  experience  which 
knows  it,  Hegel  fails  to  do  justice  to.  As 
soon,  then,  as  this  is  recognized,  we  dis- 
cover that,  whatever  we  may  say  about  the 
external  world,  at  least  those  sets  of 
experiences  which  we  call  finite  selves 
remain,  as  existences,  in  a  real  sense 
distinct,  each  with  its  own  sensational 
filling,  and  that  they  require  some  other 
connecting  bond  than  the  simple  concept 
of  "experience."  In  other  words,  Hegel's 
philosophy  is  an  acute  and  valuable  psy- 
chology of  the  individual  and  of  society^ 
not  a  science  of  the  universe.  As  a 
science  of  the  universe  it  must  maintain, 
on  its  most  favorable  showing,  that  the 
growth  in  the  appreciation   of  the  world 


Hegel  217 

and  of  life  which  the  human  race  has 
so  far  accomplished  is  God,  is  reality, 
and  the  mere  statement  of  this  result  is 
enough  to  condemn  it. 


AGNOSTICISM   AND   THE 
THEORY   OF   KNOWLEDGE 


AGNOSTICISM   AND   THE 
THEORY   OF    KNOWLEDGE 

iT  is  not  easy  to  state  in  a 
summary  way  the  advantages 
which  have  resulted  to  philoso- 
phy from  Hegel's  treatment  of  its  prob- 
lems, but  two  or  three  of  the  most 
important  of  them  may  be  briefly  re- 
capitulated. Hegel  was  able  at  once  to 
make  the  meaning  of  life  concrete,  with 
a  definite  value  for  its  own  sake,  and 
to  bring  it  under  the  unity  of  a  single 
principle.  He  made  it  concrete,  because 
he  ceased  to  take  abstract  thought  as 
the  means  of  getting  at  some  ulterior 
reality  in  a  world  of  abstractions,  and 
found  its  use  in  the  growth  of  experi- 
ence itself;    and,  similarly,  since  the  use 


222    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

of  knowledge  was  not  to  copy  a  more 
perfect  existence  simply,  but  to  enrich 
experience,  each  stage  of  experience  was 
given  the  manifest  value  belonging  to  an 
essential  step  in  the  process  of  growth. 
The  same  concept  of  a  growing  process 
enabled  him  to  reduce  the  conscious  life 
to  a  unitary  principle,  by  doing  away 
with  the  dead  fixedness  which  had  been 
so  common  in  the  notion  of  reality,  and 
by  making  it,  instead,  dynamic  and  active. 
In  this  way,  the  distinctions  which  thought 
introduces  into  life  no  longer  stood  side 
by  side  as  mere  variety,  each  on  its 
own  basis,  with  only  an  external  connec- 
tion, but  they  could  now  be  interpreted 
with  reference  to  the  one  active  process 
of  development.  And  so  we  are  able  to 
solve  the  problem  of  earlier  philosophy, 
and  get  a  unity  which  shall  not  be  ab- 
stract, apart  from  variety,  but  a  unity  in 
variety,  a  unity  which,  as  intelligent  and 
active  purpose,  takes  up  the  complexity 
of   means  which   are   needed   for   its   ac- 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    223 

complishment  as  an  essential  part  of  it- 
self. And  while  Hegel's  conception,  if 
the  criticism  in  the  preceding  chapter 
is  justified,  cannot,  just  as  it  stands,  be 
taken  as  a  philosophy  of  the  universe, 
we  yet  may  hold  that  its  value  for  such 
a  philosophy  is  very  considerable.  By 
showing  that  all  the  thought  categories 
lead  up  to,  and  have  their  explanation 
by  reference  to,  the  highest  category 
of  self-conscious  experience,  Hegel  has 
shown  the  futility  of  finding  the  essence 
of  reality  in  such  partial  categories  as 
matter,  or  force,  or  substance ;  and  we 
can  therefore  look  with  some  confidence 
on  the  conscious  self  as  at  least  the 
type  which  most  adequately  represents 
reality,  and  as  pointing  the  direction  in 
which  a  key  to  the  nature  of  the  uni- 
verse is  to  be  found. 

With  Hegel  we  reach  the  culmination 
of  one  line  of  development  from  Kant. 
Along  with  objective  idealism,  the  other 
two  types  of   theory  which  have   played 


224    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

the  most  important  part  in  the  later 
development  of  philosophy  are,  on  the 
one  side,  agnosticism,  and  on  the  other, 
the  various  forms  of  what  perhaps  may 
be  called  theistic  idealism.  Both  of  these 
owe  a  great  deal  to  Kant,  but  particu- 
larly the  former,  as  it  was  this  result 
which  Kant  himself  explicitly  adopted. 
The  same  tendency  has  been  greatly 
strengthened  also  by  recent  scientific 
thought.  Kant's  agnosticism,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  based  on  this,  that  the 
intellectual  forms  of  abstract  thought, 
which  hitherto  had  been  supposed  to 
give  us  reality,  were,  as  he  discovered, 
only  capable  of  being  used  if  they  were 
supplied  with  material  cast  in  the  form 
of  space  and  time;  and  as  these  latter 
forms  seemed  to  him  to  be  purely  sub- 
jective, it  followed  that  the  nature  of 
things  as  they  are  in  themselves  is  com- 
pletely hidden  from  us.  While  dispens- 
ing with  much  of  Kant's  machinery, 
modem    scientific    agnosticism    is    essen- 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    225 

tially  of  the  same  type.  It  also  starts 
from  the  subjective  nature  of  our  sense 
experience.  Science  shows  how  sensa- 
tions of  color,  and  sound,  and  taste,  do 
not  in  reality  represent  the  nature  of 
the  outside  world,  but  are  due  to  the 
peculiar  construction  of  our  sense  organs ; 
and  yet  as  sensations  appear  to  be  forced 
upon  us,  it  assumes  that  there  is  some- 
thing more  original  than  the  sensations 
themselves,  which  by  its  action  on  the 
senses  gives  rise  to  them.  Since,  how- 
ever, all  our  knowledge  is  cast  in  a 
sensuous  mould,  it  is  necessarily  relative 
to  our  sensuous  mechanism,  and  never 
reveals  what  the  reality  is  in  its  own 
existence. 

It  is  well  to  notice,  however,  an  impor- 
tant difference  in  attitude  between  Kant 
and  the  modem  scientist.  Kant  was  pro- 
foundly interested  in  the  nature  of  things- 
in-themselves,  and  it  was,  indeed,  his 
purpose  to  show  that,  while  we  cannot 
prove  the  spiritual  character  of  this  ulti- 


226    Agnostkism,  Theory  of  Kfiowledge 

mate  reality,  and  its  consonancy  with 
man's  highest  interests,  yet  it  is  equally 
impossible  for  the  sceptic  to  disprove  it; 
and  so  there  is  no  necessary  contradiction 
in  accepting  the  existence  of  God,  free- 
dom, and  immortality,  in  case  there  are 
reasons  for  doing  this  other  than  intel- 
lectual. These  reasons  Kant  himself  found 
in  the  moral  life.  The  scientific  agnostic, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  commonly  very  well 
content  to  leave  questions  about  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  reality  unanswered.  It 
seems  to  him  that  the  phenomenal  world 
is  all  that  is  of  any  interest  to  us.  So  long 
as  we  can  detect  the  laws  of  phenomena, 
and  use  them  practically  in  furthering  the 
interests  of  man  in  the  world,  what  reason 
is  there,  he  will  ask,  that  we  should  worry 
ourselves  over  what  lies  back  of  phenom- 
ena, and  never  enters  into  human  life  at 
all  ?  Before  we  look  at  the  intellectual 
grounds  for  agnosticism,  let  us  consider 
this  emotional  attitude  which  it  involves. 
And     a     distinction     may    be     drawn 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    227 

here  between  agnosticism,  and  scepti- 
cism. Scepticism,  in  its  pure  form,  is 
simply  a  criticism  of  existing  theories,  and 
a  demand  to  know  their  basis  and  crite- 
rion; it  is  not  a  positive  theory  itself. 
Agnosticism  goes  beyond  this  in  saying 
that  reality  is  of  a  special  kind,  a  kind 
which  is  unknowable,  and  which  at  least, 
then,  is  different  from  anything  that  sense 
experience  can  give  us.  But  agnosticism 
and  scepticism  may  both  agree  in  question- 
ing the  value  of  any  other  knowledge  than 
that  practical  and  everyday  knowledge 
which  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  our  material 
needs. 

To  this  common  objection  to  the  claims 
of  philosophy,  the  objection  that,  if  we 
can  know  enough  to  govern  our  actions  in 
the  world,  and  make  such  use  of  natural 
forces  as  is  needed  to  assist  us  in  our  pur- 
poses, we  have  everything  that  can  be  of 
any  value  to  us,  there  are  two  things  to 
be  said.  In  the  first  place,  such  know- 
ledge hardly  guarantees  all  that  we  require 


228    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

even  for  this  purely  practical  need.  It  is, 
and  must  be,  just  a  rule  of  thumb  know- 
ledge, which  is  bas^d  upon  no  insight  into 
the  real  nature  of  the  phenomena  with 
which  we  have  to  do ;  and  it  therefore 
leaves  us,  necessarily  and  forever,  in  the 
position  of  mere  empiricists,  with  no  ra- 
tional foundation  for  believing  that  our 
practical  empire  over  nature  is  anything 
but  accidental,  and  so  liable  to  be  over- 
turned at  any  moment.  But  apart  from 
this,  the  assertion  is  not  true  that  we  can 
be  content  merely  with  what  insures  us  a 
practical  control  over  natural  forces,  as  if 
every  one  would  be  quite  happy  if  he  had 
enough  to  eat  and  wear.  The  scientific 
spirit  is  itself  much  more  than  this.  The 
scientist  does  not  study  electricity  in  order 
directly  to  apply  it  to  telegraphs  and  elec- 
tric motors,  but  he  is  interested  in  it  on  its 
own  account,  as  showing  the  innermost 
construction  of  the  world;  and  if  he  did 
not  feel  that  he  was  getting  at  reality 
thereby,  his  work  would  lose  half  its  zest 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    229 

for  him.  And  just  this  interest  which  is 
the  Hfe  of  science,  the  interest  in  know- 
ing what  things  really  are,  is  of  itself  an 
answer  to  the  claim  that  it  does  not  matter 
to  us  whether  we  get  at  the  reality  beyond 
phenomena  or  not.  If  there  is  a  more  ulti- 
mate reality  than  that  of  the  phenomena 
with  which  science  deals,  it  is  useless  to 
tell  us  that  our  interest  should  stop  with 
the  surface  appearance,  and  refuse  to  pen- 
etrate beneath  it ;  that  is  what  it  never  will 
consent  to  do.  And  this  desire  to  know 
what  things  really  are,  as  opposed  to  what 
they  seem  to  be,  is  no  mere  idle  curiosity ; 
it  belongs  with  our  desire  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  life  itself.  It  cannot  be  a  mat- 
ter of  unconcern  whether  reality,  in  its 
final  statement,  is  akin  to  us,  something 
which  justifies  and  backs  up  those  inter- 
ests which  we  recognize  as  highest  in 
human  life,  or  whether  the  latter  are  but 
an  unessential  incident  upon  the  surface 
of  a  universe  which,  at  its  heart,  is  quite 
indifferent  to  them.     While  there  remains 


230    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

so  large  a  part  of  our  experience  as  that 
which  is  constituted  by  our  relations  to  the 
outer  world,  which  refuses  to  take  its  place 
within  the  ideal  values  of  life,  and  remains 
an  alien  and  contingent  element,  the  har- 
mony which  we  seek  in  life  is  put  beyond 
our  reach. 

A  somewhat  similar  reply  can  be  made 
to  those  who  would  have  us  find  in  human- 
itarian interests,  in  the  relationships  which 
constitute  human  society,  a  final  and  satis- 
factory account  of  all  we  can  say  about 
reality,  which  stands  in  no  need  of  any 
more  ultimate  knowledge  to  give  it  sanc- 
tion. It  may  very  well  be  true  that  no 
values  exist  apart  from  the  social  whole, 
and  that  this  supplies  us  with  the  best  key 
we  can  get  to  the  inner  meaning  of  the 
world.  But  still  it  is  impossible  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  hiunaji  life  is  but  an  infinitely 
small  part  of  that  universe  in  which  it  is 
placed,  and  that  we  cannot,  with  the 
agnostic,  set  aside  as  unimportant  the 
relations  which  human  life  bears  to  reality 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    23 1 

as  a  whole,  without  taking  the  foundation 
out  from  under  the  validity  of  social  inter- 
ests themselves.  If  humanity  has  no  jus- 
tification in  the  ultimate  constitution  of 
things,  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  make 
any  permanent  demand  upon  our  loyalty 
and  reverence.  The  agnostic  can  exalt 
humanity,  only  because,  in  spite  of  his 
creed,  he  feels  that  here  he  has  got  into 
some  true  contact  with  the  real ;  and  if  he 
does  not  feel  this,  he  will  inevitably  pass 
over  into  cynicism,  or  at  best  into  a  mood 
of  good-natured  toleration. 

But  whether  we  desire  to  know  the 
nature  of  reality  or  not,  of  course  we 
might  just  as  well  give  the  whole  thing  up 
first  as  last,  if  it  is  true,  as  the  agnostic 
claims,  that  such  knowledge  is  denied  us ; 
and  this  leads  to  the  second  point,  the  crit- 
icism of  agnosticism  on  the  intellectual 
side,  as  a  philosophical  theory  for  which 
definite  arguments  are  adduced.  And  in 
a  negative  way,  the  most  obvious  reason 
for  refusing  assent  to  the  claims  which  the 


232    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

agnostic  makes  is  this,  that  if  it  really  were 
true  that  knowledge  is  confined  simply  to 
phenomena,  then  by  no  possibility  could 
we  ever  be  aware  of  it.  There  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  saying  that  things-in-them- 
selves  exist,  but  that  we  cannot  know 
them;  if  we  know  that  they  exist,  then 
they  cannot  be  unknowable,  for  at  least 
their  existence  is  known,  and,  it  may  be 
added,  their  positive  causal  relation  to 
phenomena  also.  And  if  we  have  this 
very  definite  and  important  knowledge,  by 
what  right  are  we  to  be  compelled  to  stop 
here  ?  In  principle  there  is  no  difference 
between  this  knowledge  and  any  further 
knowledge  we  may  wish  to  claim ;  an 
argument  to  prove  we  cannot  know  w/tat 
things  are,  tells  equally  against  the  know- 
ledge t/iat  they  are.  It  has  been  seen  al- 
ready, in  speaking  of  Kant,  that  it  is  the 
principle  of  causation  upon  which  it  is 
relied  to  prove  that  things-in-themselves 
exist,  and  that  if  our  knowledge  is  of  a 
truth  confined  within  the  realm  of  phenom- 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    233 

ena,  this  principle  will  apply  only  to  phe- 
nomenal existence,  and  will  not  take  us  a 
step  beyond.  So  that  if  it  were  actually 
true  that  our  knowledge  is  simply  of  phe- 
nomena, we  should  indeed,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  be  confined  within  a  certain  field,  but 
then,  too,  we  should  be  perfectly  satisfied 
with  this,  and  should  never  suspect  that 
there  was  anything  beyond  it.  In  know- 
ing the  limits,  we  have  already  implicitly 
passed  beyond  them. 

What,  then,  is  the  flaw  in  the  argu- 
ments by  means  of  which  the  agnostic 
attempts  to  prove  that  our  knowledge 
of  reality  must  be  a  knowledge  of  ap- 
pearance only,  and  never  of  things  in 
their  own  proper  nature }  In  order  to 
answer  the  question,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  scrutinize  more  carefully  what  is  im- 
plied in  the  possibility  of  any  knowledge 
at  all.  We  have  seen  that  there  are 
two  questions  which  are  concerned  here : 
the  nature  of  knowledge  as  a  process 
of    knowing,    an    immediate    experience, 


234    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

and  the  nature  of  the  external  reference 
which  knowledge  involves.  This  latter 
problem  idealism  practically  ignores. 
Subjective  idealism  assumes  that  states 
of  consciousness,  sensations,  tell  us  about 
themselves,  but  not  about  anything  be- 
sides ;  that  we  have  the  sensation  as 
an  assured  fact,  but  anything  beyond 
this  only  as  an  inference.  Hegelianism 
does  not  confine  knowledge  to  sensations, 
indeed,  for  it  recognizes  that  our  experi- 
ence is  not  of  sensations  merely,  but  of 
objective  things  ;  but  still  it  holds  that  the 
object  exists  only  for  experience,  which, 
as  has  been  seen,  must  logically  mean 
either  the  individual,  or,  at  best,  the  race 
experience,  and  that  it  stands  for  no 
separate  abiding  reality  beyond,  and  ex- 
isting simultaneously  with,  the  experience 
which  knows  it. 

The  earlier  attempts  to  solve  this 
second  aspect  of  the  problem  of  know- 
ledge were  based  on  very  crude  material 
analogies,  and    can    easily  be    recognized 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    23  5 

now  as  having  ao  real  explanatory  value. 
The  mind  was  looked  on  as  a  sort  of 
blank  paper,  or  wax  tablet,  and  then 
external  things  somehow  came  in  and 
impressed  a  copy  of  themselves  upon  it. 
This  fancy,  besides  depending  on  an  un- 
critical analogy,  also  carried  the  impli- 
cation with  it  that  the  object  was  like 
the  copy  which  it  made  in  conscious- 
ness; and  as  the  scientific  conception  of 
the  world  gained  ground,  and  the  purely 
subjective  nature  of  sensation  seemed  to 
be  established,  it  naturally  would  fall 
away.  But  now  if  we  are  left  with 
sensations  as  the  only  facts  immediately 
given,  and  sensations  which  are  wholly 
unlike  the  reality  which  causes  them, 
how  are  we  to  know  there  is  such  a 
reality  at  all }  The  word  "  cause  "  sug- 
gests the  answer  which  has  most  com- 
monly been  made;  we  know  reality 
beyond  our  own  consciousness  by  an  act 
of  thought,  as  the  result  of  a  process  of 
reasoning  based  on  the  notion  of  causa- 


236    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

tion.  The  rationalist  cojuld  do  this  with 
a  good  conscience,  for  he  had  the  neces- 
sary tools  at  hand,  in  the  shape  of  self- 
evident  truths ;  but  the  sensationalist 
came  back  just  as  truly  to  the  same 
idea.  He  had  his  sensations,  and  he 
wished  to  get  beyond  them ;  and  the 
only  way  was  by  assuming  that  the  sen- 
sations did  not  furnish  a  sufficient  reason 
for  their  own  existence,  and  so  must 
have  a  cause.  In  so  far,  then,  as  the 
question  was  consciously  put  at  all,  our 
knowledge  of  the  outer  world  was  re- 
garded as  an  inference,  depending  on 
an  act  of  abstract  thinking,  with  the 
notion   of   causation   as   its   basis. 

Now  this  whole  assumption,  that  it 
is  only  sensations  that  are  known  im- 
mediately, and  that  our  knowledge  of 
external  objects  is  an  indirect  inference, 
may  be  called  in  question.  Is  it  true 
that  sensations  are  known  any  more 
directly  than  objects  are }  So  much  of 
the  assertion  is  of   course   true,  that  we 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    23  7 

cannot  experience  anything  which  is  not 
our  experience,  but  the  confusion  comes 
in  confounding  experiencing  with  know- 
ing. Let  us  distinguish,  then,  between 
an  immediate  awareness  of,  and  a  medi- 
ate knowledge  about.  And  there  has 
already  been  occasion  to  notice,  in  the 
chapter  on  sensationalism,  that  the  former 
by  itself  is  insufficient  to  carry  us  a  step. 
An  experience,  as  merely  conscious  of 
itself  in  an  immediate  way,  tells  us  noth- 
ing whatever  about  anything  else,  and 
when  it  ceases  to  be  directly  experienced 
it  is  gone  forever,  and  is  incapable  of 
leaving  a  trace  behind.  In  order  to  ex- 
amine a  conscious  state,  and  know  it  as 
such,  we  have  to  depend  upon  memory, 
and  then  it  is  not  the  conscious  state 
which  is  known  that  is  immediately  ex- 
perienced, but  the  state  of  knowing  it; 
a  thing  which  is  known  is  never  as  such 
a  direct  matter  of  experience.  Since, 
then,  it  is  a  question,  for  philosophy  at 
least,  not  of   merely  experiencing  a  sen- 


238    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

sation,  but  of  knowing  it  as  a  sensation, 
a  state  of  consciousness  is  not  given  to 
us,  for  knowledge,  as  the  immediate,  in- 
dubitable fact  which  it  has  been  claimed 
to  be,  but  it  raises  just  the  same  ques- 
tions that  an  external  object  raises. 

Just  as  it  is  not  true  that  we  immedi- 
ately experience  states  of  consciousness 
as  subjective,  so  it  is  not  true,  either, 
that,  in  point  of  fact,  we  get  at  the  outer 
world  by  an  indirect  inference.  Sensa- 
tionalism supposes  that  first  there  comes 
the  consciousness  of  a  sensation,  and 
then,  by  a  complicated  process  of  reason- 
ing, this  is  taken  to  involve  in  some  way 
a  reality  distinct  from  it.  No  one  who 
will  examine  what  actually  happens  when 
he  looks  at  an  object  can  fail  to  see 
how  purely  mythological  this  description 
is;  he  certainly  will  find  that  he  has  no 
consciousness  of  any  inference,  and  no 
consciousness,  even,  that  there  are  two 
things  involved,  a  sensation  and  an  object, 
but  the  seeing  of  the  object  will  appear 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    239 

to  him  to  be  a  purely  immediate  and 
unitary  act.  Before  we  ask,  however, 
what  really  is  involved  in  the  possibility 
of  an  act  of  knowledge,  let  us  consider 
first  the  nature  of  a  conscious  experi- 
ence  of   any    kind. 

If  we  examine  any  conscious  experi- 
ence which  is  accessible  to  us,  we  shall 
find  that  any  element  in  it  which  we 
can  pin  down  and  fix,  as  in  some  sort 
an  existence,  can  be  described  in  terms 
of  sensation,  including  under  this  term 
those  so-called  revived  sensations  which 
are  called  images.  From  one  point  of 
view,  then,  our  conscious  life  may  be 
reduced  to  a  chain  of  such  sensational 
facts,  and  it  is  this  which  is  the  justifi- 
cation of  what  the  sensationalist  con- 
tends for.  The  sensationalist  is  wrong, 
however,  in  saying  that  this  chain  of 
sensations  is  the  original  stuff  from 
which  all  the  conscious  Hfe  is  second- 
arily derived.  We  have  already  seen 
that  what   we   have    originally   is    not   a 


240    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

lot  of  sensations,  but  a  whole  of  experi- 
ence, out  of  which  the  sensations  are 
differentiated;  and  that  the  attempt  to 
build  up  everything  by  merely  adding 
sensations  together  has  been  a  failure. 
It  is  no  adequate  description  of  the  facts 
to  speak  of  life  as  made  up  of  a  pas- 
sive flow  of  conscious  states;  it  clearly  is 
far  more  than  this,  however  the  "  more  " 
may  be  described.  My  experience  in 
eating  an  apple  is  not  a  sensation  of 
sight,  plus  a  sensation  of  touch,  plus  a 
sensation  of  taste,  but  it  is  just  what  it 
purports  to  be  —  the  experience  of  eating 
an  apple.  What  is  it,  then,  that  the 
sensationalist  leaves  out  of  his  account? 

If  we  try  to  supply  the  missing  ele- 
ment, we  shall  find  that  it  is  most  ade- 
quately characterized  as  the  element  of 
activity.  By  conscious  activity  is  meant 
simply  this :  a  process  which  is  governed 
all  along  by  some  end  or  purpose,  which 
is  present  at  each  stage,  selecting  be- 
tween  possible  alternatives,  and   shaping 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    241 

the  course  in  which  consciousness  shall 
flow ;  so  that  at  the  end  there  is  the 
recognition  of  having  accomplished  some- 
thing, which  something  is  the  reason  and 
justification  of  all  that  had  gone  before. 
There  is  not  simply  a  string  of  discon- 
nected existences,  but  the  whole  is  bound 
together  into  a  unity  by  this  teleological 
reference.  The  end  is  not  a  fact  which 
is  added  to  the  parts,  but  it  is  accom- 
plished in  them ;  each  element  that  we 
can  distinguish  has  its  particular  place 
with  reference  to  the  end  in  view,  and 
only  with  reference  to  this  does  it  pos- 
sess meaning.  Purpose,  conscious  or 
unconscious,  intended  or  actual,  is  what 
characterizes  normal  experience,  and  gives 
it  all  the  worth  that  it  possesses.  We 
do  not  have  to  think,  therefore,  of  the 
spiritual  element  in  experience  as  some- 
thing which  is  superadded  to  the  sensa- 
tional life,  in  a  higher  realm  of  being,  as 
Plato  conceived  of  it,  but  as  the  inner 
spirit  which  presides  over   and  animates 


242    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

all  experience.  All  experience  alike  is 
sensational,  but  all  alike  is  also  more 
than  this ;  it  is  a  conscious  act,  wherein 
the  elements  of  sensation  and  of  image 
are  disposed  and  used  in  relation  to  a 
unifying  end.  Sensation  or  image  must 
be  present  to  give  content  and  reality  to 
life,  otherwise  it  would  lack  substance 
and  body,  would  be  moving  in  the 
vacuum  of  pure  abstraction  ;  but  it  is 
there  not  as  bare  fact,  mere  sensation,  but 
as  an  element  in  an  activity  which  uses 
it  for  its  own  ends,  an  activity  in  which 
every  part  fits  into  and  aims  towards 
the  accomplishment  of  a  purpose,  which 
expresses  itself  in  the  entire  process,  and 
governs  it  at  every  stage.  This  activity 
cannot  be  found,  of  course,  in  any  special 
element,  because  it  is  present  everywhere; 
we  cannot  lay  our  finger  on  it  as  a  par- 
ticular bit  of  existence,  as  we  can  on  a 
sensation,  for  that  would  be  to  arrest  it, 
and  it  could  not  be  arrested  without  being 
by  that  very  fact  destroyed. 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    243 

By  drawing  this  distinction,  then,  be- 
tween the  sensational  content  in  experi- 
ence, and  the  use  to  which  this  is  put, 
we  may  perhaps  be  better  able  to  under- 
stand what  is  involved  in  an  act  of  know- 
ledge. That  the  distinction  in  general  is 
a  valid  one  is  shown  most  clearly  by  the 
modern  psychology  of  the  concept.  A 
consistent  sensationalistic  philosophy  at- 
tempts to  do  away  with  the  concept,  or 
abstract  idea,  ifi  toto.  What  is  meant, 
asked  Berkeley,  by  the  idea  of  a  table 
which  is  no  particular  table,  has  no  par- 
ticular size,  or  shape,  or  color,  but  only 
such  qualities  in  general }  When  I  look 
into  my  mind  I  find  nothing  of  this  sort, 
but  always  a  particular  image,  confused, 
perhaps,  and  indistinct,  but  still  different 
from  any  other  image;  or  else  I  find  just 
a  name,  a  word.  And  modern  psychol- 
ogy finds  no  fault  with  this  so  far  as  it 
goes ;  the  image  always  is  a  particular 
image,  but  the  image  is  not  the  abstract 
idea.     This    latter   is   involved    rather   in 


244    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

the  use  to  which  we  put  the  image ;  we 
use  the  image  to  mean  or  stand  for  any 
or  every  one  of  a  number  of  actual  tables, 
and  it  is  in  this  conscious  meaning  which 
we  have  that  the  essence  of  the  concept 
consists.  We  shall  have,  then,  an  expla- 
nation of  the  possibility  of  knowledge 
which  apparently  does  not  distort  the 
facts,  if  we  suppose  that,  as  the  particu- 
lar image  is  lost  sight  of  in  its  concept- 
ual use,  so  in  a  somewhat  similar  way  a 
sensational  content  in  experience  may 
come  to  us  without  claiming  any  inter- 
est whatever  on  its  own  account,  as  an 
immediate  experience,  but  with  a  claim 
to  represent  directly  another  reality  be- 
yond itself.  Let  us  examine  this  first  in 
a  case  where  the  knowledge  is  of  some- 
thing in  our  own  experience. 

If  we  take  an  instance  of  remember- 
ing our  former  perception  of  an  object, 
psychology  will  show  that  there  is  pres- 
ent, in  the  act  of  remembering,  an  image, 
in    some  shape  or  other,  that   represents 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    245 

this  previous  experience.  This  image 
either  is  a  fainter  copy  of  the  actual  sen- 
sation we  had  in  looking  at  the  object, 
or  else  it  stands  indirectly  for  such  a 
copy  by  association,  and  would  ultimately 
issue  in  it.  But  while  I  am  in  the  act 
of  remembering,  I  am  not  conscious  of 
this  image  as  an  image,  a  present  expe- 
rience, though  of  course  I  am  actually 
passing  through  a  present  experience  of 
which  the  image  is  a  part ;  but  the  image 
stands  for  another  experience  in  the  past, 
with  which  alone  my  thought  is  now  oc- 
cupied. So  that  the  image  has  appar- 
ently the  power,  not  indirectly  and  as  a 
matter  of  inference,  but  immediately  and 
originally,  of  meaning-  something  which 
existed  in  the  past,  but  does  not  now 
exist,  and  which,  therefore,  lies  beyond 
the  experience  which  knows  it.  And  this 
is  all  that  knowledge  means  in  any  case ; 
the  only  difference,  when  we  come  to 
external  perception,  lies  in  this,  that  here 
the  reality  which  the  sensational  content 


246    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

stands  for,  means,  is  a  reality  which  never 
formed,  as  the  perception  of  the  object 
did,  a  section  in  that  continuous  stream 
of  experience  which  we  call  ours.  All 
we  have  to  suppose  is  that  a  particular 
fact  of  sensation  in  our  own  experience 
copies,  or  sufficiently  resembles,  a  similar 
content  in  a  reality  beyond  our  experi- 
ence ;  and  that  this  sensation  calls  no 
attention  to  its  own  existence,  but  comes 
originally  with  a  claim  that  it  means, 
refers  to,  the  reality  beyond,  which  we 
thus  are  able  to  know,  without  its  ever 
coming,  as  an  existence,  within  our  con- 
scious life.  Consequently,  we  do  not  need 
to  deny  the  apparent  testimony  of  expe- 
rience, that  the  perception  of  an  object 
is  an  immediate  and  unitary  act.  It  is 
quite  true  that  we  are  not  conscious  of 
the  sensation,  and  of  the  object  to  which 
it  refers,  in  the  same  act ;  when  the  sen- 
sation means  an  external  object,  it  loses 
itself  in  this  meaning,  and  to  know  it  as 
a  sensation  requires  a  second  experience, 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    247 

distinct  from  the  perception  of  the  ob- 
ject. So,  also,  the  object  is  perceived 
without  any  process  of  inference  being 
interposed.  The  fact  of  claiming  to  tell 
us  about  something  beyond  itself  is  not 
a  fact  which  we  can  explain  or  deduce, 
but  it  is  an  ultimate  datum.  We  cannot 
prove,  either,  that  the  claim  is  a  valid 
one,  in  any  absolute  sense  of  the  term 
"  proof  " ;  for  since  knowledge  is  the  only 
possible  way  we  have  of  reaching  a  real- 
ity that  lies  beyond  our  own  immediate 
experience,  it  is  out  of  the  question  for 
us  to  think  of  getting  such  reality,  by 
any  other  means,  within  our  experience 
bodily,  for  the  sake  of  testing  it;  those 
practical  tests  which  ordinarily  are  suffi- 
cient for  us  we  cannot  use,  because  these 
already  presuppose  what  we  want  to 
prove.  But  this  result  is  not  scepticism. 
It  is  true,  we  are  compelled  to  take  the 
claim  of  knowledge  in  a  sense  on  faith, 
but  it  is  not  a  groundless  faith,  for  prac- 
tically we  must  admit  the  claim  in  order 


248    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

to  so  much  as  doubt  it.  Doubt  must  af- 
fect the  claim  of  memory  to  reproduce 
the  past,  just  as  really  as  it  does  the 
claim  of  sense  perception  to  reproduce 
the  outer  world;  and  unless  we  grant 
what  memory  calls  for,  we  must  give  up 
all  attempts  to  reason,  and  live  forever 
in  the  bare  sensation  of  the  moment. 
Unless  we  admit  the  fact  of  knowledge 
in  the  case  of  memory,  our  whole  world 
goes  to  pieces;  and  if  we  do  admit  it, 
then  we  have  no  right  to  deny  the  pre- 
cisely similar  claim  of  sense  perception, 
without  a  very  positive  reason  for  our 
denial. 

If  we  look  at  the  conclusion  which 
has  just  been  stated,  we  shall  see  that 
it  has  a  further  implication  which  is  of 
very  great  importance.  Such  a  resem- 
blance as  is  called  for,  between  our  ex- 
perience and  reality,  is  only  possible 
under  one  condition.  We  can  know  an 
experience  of  our  own  for  the  reason 
that  it  is  a  conscious  experience,  similar 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    249 

in  so  far  to  the  second  experience  which 
knows  it.  So,  also,  the  process  which 
we  have  supposed  takes  place  in  per- 
ception will  not  be  possible,  unless  the 
object,  the  external  thing,  is  also  essen- 
tially of  the  nature  of  consciousness, 
similar  in  kind  to  the  experience  by 
which  it  is  known.  But  while  this  is 
a  very  important  consideration  in  its 
place,  there  is  no  need  just  here  to 
dwell  upon  it.  The  arguments  of  agnos- 
ticism are  based  upon  the  process  in- 
volved in  knowing,  the  mechanism  of  the 
act,  and  it  is  on  this  ground  that  its  ob- 
jections must  be  met.  And  we  are  now 
perhaps  in  a  condition  to  point  out  where 
the  agnostic's  reasoning  fails  to  be  con- 
clusive. If  we  look  again  at  the  argu- 
ment of  Kant,  we  see  that  it  is  based 
upon  the  supposition  that  there  are  two 
distinct  sources  in  knowledge,  sense  and 
understanding,  which  must  cooperate  be- 
fore knowledge  takes  place ;  and  that 
therefore    understanding    by    itself    does 


250    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

not  take  us  into  the  noumenal  world. 
And  because  the  abstract  understanding 
by  itself  tells  us  nothing  of  reality,  there- 
fore there  is  no  possible  way  in  which 
such  knowledge  can  be  got.  While, 
that  is,  Kant  succeeds  in  showing  that 
the  rationalist's  attempt  to  get  reality 
out  of  mere  abstract  thought  is  a  failure, 
he  still  retains  the  rationalistic  assump- 
tion, that  if  we  could  get  reality,  abstract 
thought  of  some  sort  after  all  would  be 
the  only  way ;  and  so  he  imagines  a 
thought  which  should  be  immediate,  and 
not  require  that  material  be  given  it  to 
work  upon.  Now  in  this  position  of 
Kant's  there  are  two  separate  things 
which  need  to  be  distinguished.  Kant, 
to  repeat,  had  been  accustomed  to  re- 
gard a  process  of  abstract  thinking  as 
the  only  path  by  which  we  can  arrive 
at  a  knowledge  of  noumenal  reality,  and 
since,  as  he  pointed  out,  such  thought, 
for  us,  always  implies  sensation,  we  can- 
not try  to  make   thought  work  by  itself 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    251 

and  still  expect  to  get  valid  results.  But 
now  this  argument,  which  concerns  the 
method  of  reaching  reality,  carries  also, 
as  Kant  uses  it,  an  assumption  with  it 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  reality  about 
which  we  are  trying  to  obtain  a  know- 
ledge, and  this  assumption  is,  that  in 
ultimate  reality  the  sense  element  must 
of  necessity  be  lacking.  Not  only  does 
Kant  hold  that  thought  is  unable  to  lead 
us  to  reality,  but  the  ultimate  reason  for 
this  failure  depends,  for  him,  upon  the 
supposed  impossibility  that  the  sense  ex- 
perience to  which  thought  contributes  an 
element  should  in  any  way  resemble  the 
real.  Suppose  we  admit,  with  Kant, 
that  thought  by  itself  is  insufficient,  but 
maintain,  as  the  whole  spirit  of  his  argu- 
ment requires,  that,  when  we  try  to  take 
it  by  itself,  thought  is  purely  an  abstrac- 
tion, and  that  the  only  reality  is  the 
concrete  experience,  within  which  sense 
data  and  thought  are  mutually  involved 
phases;    why    might    not    this    concrete 


252    Agfwsticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

experience  truly  represent  the  nature  of 
ultimate  reality,  even  though  that  which 
is  only  an  abstracted  element  from  expe- 
rience failed  to  do  so  ?  Such  a  question, 
we  see,  gets  no  answer  from  Kant's  direct 
argument,  which  was  to  the  effect  that 
human  experience  fails  of  being  a  true 
key  to  the  nature  of  reality,  because  it  is 
due  to  the  necessary  union  of  thought 
with  sense ;  the  question  now  is,  why  this 
very  union  may  not  be  a  type  of  noumenal 
existence,  why  the  real  world  may  not 
correspond  to  that  whole  concrete  expe- 
rience which  it  takes  both  sense  and 
thought  to  constitute.  And  Kant  answers 
this  question,  not  by  an  argument,  but  by 
an  assumption  —  the  assumption  that  our 
experience,  which  is  cast  in  the  form  of 
space  and  time,  must  obviously  be  purely 
subjective,  subjective  in  the  sense  that  it 
must  be  utterly  unlike  that  which  it  pro- 
fesses to  represent.  But  this  is  after  all 
not  obvious;  it  requires  to  be  proved.  If, 
indeed,  it  were  meant  simply  to  deny  that 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    253 

space  and  time  are  things  by  themselves, 
within  which  the  absolute  reality  exists,  as 
our  bodies  exist  in  space  and  are  limited 
by  it,  we  might  consider  that  Kant  has 
sufficiently  proved  his  point.  But  the  real 
thing  that  he  would  need  to  deny  is  this, 
that  noumenal  reality  may  conceivably 
be  a  self-conscious  experience  similar  to 
the  experience  which  constitutes  our  own 
lives,  and  that  between  the  elements  of 
this  experience  there  may  be  certain  real 
relations  which  correspond  to  spatial  and 
temporal  relations ;  and  this  is  not  a  con- 
ception which  is  on  the  face  of  it  impos- 
sible, though  no  doubt  it  leaves  genuine 
metaphysical  difficulties  still  to  be  solved. 
But  they  are  difficulties  to  which,  again, 
our  experience  affords  at  least  a  clew.  If 
I  take  my  own  experience,  it  is,  as  Kant 
himself  pointed  out,  even  as  a  temporal 
experience,  in  some  sense  also  out  of  and 
above  time,  since  the  conscious  unity 
which  is  present  through  it  all,  and  with- 
out which  it  could  not  exist,  is  no  mem- 


254    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

ber  of  the  temporal  series,  but  something 
which  makes  the  very  conception  of  time 
possible.  And  if  my  self  can  express  it- 
self in  what  from  another  point  of  view 
appears  as  an  experience  in  time,  without 
becoming  a  part  of  this  temporal  series, 
or  being  limited  by  it,  we  cannot  deny  the 
same  possibility  to  the  Absolute.  It  is, 
therefore,  only  an  assumption  on  Kant's 
part,  which  he  really  does  not  undertake 
to  prove,  that  ultimate  reality  must  of 
necessity  be  quite  unlike  what  we  know 
as  human  life.  And  if  this  is  granted,  it 
has  already  been  seen  how  it  is  possible 
to  obviate  the  force  of  his  more  explicit 
argument.  Experience,  for  us,  is  not  a 
thing  made  up  of  two  distinct  parts,  a  set 
of  abstract  forms,  and  a  formless  material 
given  to  them  to  work  upon.  If,  as  Kant 
declared,  experience  is  impossible  without 
both  thought  and  sense,  then  by  them- 
selves thought  and  sense  are  mere  ab- 
stractions, and  never  existed,  or  could 
exist,  apart.     The  reality  is  the  concrete 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    255 

sensuous  experience,  which,  as  it  is  a  con- 
scious unity,  must  from  the  start  be  bound 
together  by  what  we  afterwards  recognize 
as  thought  relations,  and  not  be  made  up 
simply  of  a  lot  of  sensations ;  and  the 
distinction  between  sense  and  thought, 
therefore,  as  an  explicit  distinction  in  ex- 
perience, is  not  a  metaphysical  but  a 
psychological  one,  and  must  be  explained 
by  showing  what  part  the  given  element 
and  the  conceptual  element  play  in  the 
one  experience  of  which  they  are  —  not 
component  factors,  but  related  phases. 
And  we  no  longer  have  any  need  to  hold 
that  it  is  the  function  of  the  thought 
element,  working  by  itself,  to  reveal  to  us 
the  existence  of  a  reality  beyond  our  ex- 
perience, because  we  have  already  dis- 
covered that  this  knowledge,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  comes  to  us  in  a  much  more  direct 
way.  We  may  still  find  ourselves  able  to 
retain  those  things-in-themselves  which 
proved  so  unmanageable  for  Kant,  by 
dropping  the  notion  altogether  that  their 


256    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Ktiowledge 

existence  has  to  be  established  for  us  by 
a  process  of  thought,  and  by  recognizing 
that  the  knowledge  of  them  is  an  original 
datum,  which  is  given  in  the  immediate 
claim  on  the  part  of  certain  concrete  sec- 
tions of  our  experience  to  stand  for  reali- 
ties other  than  themselves,  and  which  is 
already  presupposed  in  every  act  of  think- 
ing. In  an  act  of  thought  or  judgment, 
such  as  "This  rose  is  red,"  we  have  the 
subject  "  this  rose,"  which  already,  even 
before  the  judgment  is  passed,  carries  with 
it  the  reference  to  external  reality.  "This 
rose "  represents  a  certain  part  of  my  ex- 
perience, constituted,  for  me,  by  previous 
acts  of  judgment,  and  so  invoh^g  both 
the  elements  of  thought  and  sense,  which 
is  used  to  stand  for  a  reality,  the  actual 
rose;  and  when  the  judgment  is  com- 
pleted, there  is  still  this  same  external 
reference,  only  enlarged  now  from  "rose" 
to  "red  rose."  In  addition,  therefore,  to 
the  act  of  thinking,  and  presupposed  by 
it  both  at  the  beginning  and  the  end,  not 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    257 

in  any  sense  a  mere  result  from  it,  is  this 
fact  of  meaning  something  which  is  not 
present  in  the  experience  itself,  and  which 
is  not  abstract  like  the  thought  element, 
but  concrete,  as  the  whole  experience  is; 
and  it  is  upon  this  that  the  possibility  of 
knowledge  is  based. 

The  criticism  of  scientific  agnosticism 
must  take  a  somewhat  different  line. 
Again  we  may  ask,  without  trying  for 
the  moment  to  establish  any  positive 
theory,  what  impossibility  there  is  in  the 
way  of  supposing  that  ultimate  reality 
is  of  a  nature  which  can  be  approxi- 
mately represented  in  terms  of  sensuous 
experience,  in  case  we  find  any  reasons 
for  such  a  belief.  The  scientific  agnos- 
tic cannot  answer,  as  he  might  well  be 
inclined  to  do,  that  sensuous  experience 
is  no  true  picture  of  the  real  world,  for 
the  reason  that  this  world,  as  science 
conceives  of  it,  in  terms  of  molecules 
in  motion,  is  altogether  different  from 
sensations ;  we  cannot  say  that  we  know 


258    Agmsticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

the  world  is  of  a  particular  molecular 
construction,  without  giving  up  the  con- 
tention that  it  is  unknowable.  And  yet 
many  of  the  arguments  on  which  the 
agnostic  relies  do,  in  reality,  come  pre- 
cisely to  this.  We  are  in  general  so 
ready  to  admit  that  our  knowledge  fails 
of  attaining  to  the  real,  because  we  have 
so  much  practical  experience  of  the  un- 
certainty which  is  apt  to  attend  it,  of  the 
fluctuations  which  sense  perception  un- 
dergoes, and  the  comparatively  slight 
changes  in  the  physical  world  which  are 
sufficient  to  alter  the  entire  complexion 
of  our  conscious  life.  But  such  an  argu- 
ment all  the  time  presupposes  that  we 
know  the  inadequacy  of  passing  phases 
of  experience,  only  because  we  can  set 
over  against  them  a  truer  reality  to  com- 
pare them  with,  and  a  reality  which,  there- 
fore, we  know  to  be  adequate.  We  say 
that  our  sensations  fail  to  give  us  a  true 
account  of  the  world,  because  we  have  in 
mind  that  real  and  objective  order  which 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    259 

furnishes  a  standard  which  our  sensations 
do  not  succeed  in  meeting.  But  apart 
from  this,  there  is  also  a  rather  vaguely 
defined  notion,  on  which  the  agnostic 
relies,  that  consciousness  is  itself  a  sort 
of  product,  in  which  the  factors  that  rep- 
resent reality  in  its  more  original  form 
are  inseparably  blended;  and  that  there- 
fore we  can  only  know  this  product,  and 
not  the  factors  in  their  separate  and  more 
real  existence.  This  is  sometimes  con- 
fusedly put  in  the  form  of  a  statement 
that  consciousness  involves  both  a  sub- 
ject that  knows,  and  an  object  that  is 
known,  and  that  the  object  by  itself,  ac- 
cordingly, cannot  be  the  same  as  it  is 
when  thus  brought  into  relation  with  a 
subject,  since  the  relation  changes  it.  But 
when  we  ask  exactly  what  this  statement 
means,  we  shall  find  that  it  can  be  reduced 
to  the  very  commonplace  admission  that, 
if  I  am  going  to  know  anything,  it  has 
got  to  be  known  dj^  me,  and  so  by  a  sub- 
ject;    and   such   a  "relation"  tells   abso- 


260    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

lutely  nothing  about  the  knowability  of 
objects,  unless  it  is  based  on  the  original 
assumption,  which  is  a  pure  assumption, 
that  the  nature  of  objects  is  utterly  unlike 
conscious  experience,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  reproduced  in  terms  of  consciousness 
without  being  falsified.  It  is  true  that 
the  argument  is  valid  so  long  as  we  have 
in  mind  by  an  object  a  so-called  material 
thing,  whose  sole  characteristic  is  that  it 
is  not  consciousness;  but  then  we  have 
an  argument  against  materialism,  and  not 
against  the  possibility  of  knowledge  in 
general. 

There  is,  however,  another  fact  which 
perhaps  more  often  the  scientist  has  in 
mind  in  speaking  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge,  and  that  is  the  dependence 
of  consciousness  upon  the  sense  organs. 
Consciousness,  it  is  said,  cannot  tell  us 
about  the  real  world,  because  it  is  a  sec- 
ondary product,  which  results  only  on 
the  occasion  of  a  reaction  between  the 
object  and   the   bodily  structure.      Here, 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge    261 

again,  we  imply,  as  was  said  before,  a 
degree  of  knowledge  about  the  physical 
object,  and  the  physiological  processes, 
which  is  fatal  to  agnosticism ;  but  we  may 
pass  this  by,  and  consider  simply  the 
argument  that  is  involved  in  the  word 
"product."  The  force  of  the  argument 
seems  to  depend  on  either  one  of  two 
things.  On  the  one  hand,  the  thought 
may  be  that  two  factors,  which  have  a 
separate  existence,  combine  to  form  a 
product  distinct  in  nature  from  them- 
selves, in  which,  however,  they  lose  them- 
selves completely,  as  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
may  be  supposed  to  disappear  in  order  to 
give  place  to  water.  But  in  that  case, 
since  it  only  is  the  product  which  we,  as 
conscious  beings,  can  have  to  base  our 
knowledge  on,  there  would  be  no  reason 
for  our  thinking  that  there  were  such 
things  as  separate  factors  at  all.  If  water 
could  be  imagined  conscious,  it  could  never 
suspect  the  existence  of  oxygen  and  hy- 
drogen, because   for  the  wholly  different 


262    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

properties  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  to 
exist,  water  would  have  to  disappear.  In 
reality,  however,  this  cannot  be  what  the 
scientific  agnostic  means,  for  he  supposes 
that  the  factors  of  which  he  speaks  do 
not  disappear  in  the  conscious  product, 
but  that  this  product  is  something  addi- 
tional, which  exists  alongside  and  beyond 
them.  Therefore  his  argument  would 
seem  to  turn  rather  on  this  idea,  that  the 
action  of  an  object  in  cooperation  with 
the  physiological  processes  of  the  organ- 
ism cannot,  just  for  the  reason  that  there 
is  this  cooperation,  produce  a  conscious 
product  which  shall  represent  the  object 
by  itself.  But,  after  all,  what  is  the  basis 
of  this  supposed  impossibility  1  Is  not 
the  fact  that  such  a  mutual  interaction  in 
the  physical  world  must  produce  a  physi- 
cal result  unlike  either  of  the  cooperating 
causes,  the  sole  fact  that  the  agnostic  can 
bring  forward  to  substantiate  his  conten- 
tion }  Now  in  the  scientific  explanation 
of    sensation   we    find    certain   vibrations 


Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Kmwledge    263 

outside  the  body,  and  then  a  series  of 
molecular  changes  in  the  brain  which 
these  give  rise  to ;  and  the  latter  do  dif- 
fer from  the  former  because  they  have 
first  been  mediated  by  the  peculiar  con- 
struction of  the  sense  organs.  But  taken 
strictly,  this  is  only  a  doctrine  of  brain 
movements,  and  not  of  conscious  facts 
at  all,  and  unless  we  identify  sensations 
with  nervous  changes  in  the  brain,  it  tells 
us  nothing  of  the  former.  But  the  con- 
scious fact  is  not  the  brain  motion,  and 
does  not  resemble  it  in  the  slightest; 
since,  therefore,  it  lies  outside  the  realm 
of  facts  to  which  our  scientific  statements 
apply,  we  have  absolutely  no  a  priori 
reason  for  saying  that  because,  in  the 
physical  world,  the  brain  movement  can- 
not resemble  that  which  makes  up  only 
a  part  of  the  conditions  that  are  necessary 
to  produce  it,  therefore  the  non-physical 
fact  of  consciousness  may  not  represent  the 
reality  which,  indeed,  is  what  ultimately 
gives  rise  to  it,  but  which  is  its  cause  in 


264    Agnosticism,  Theory  of  Knowledge 

quite  another  sense  from  that  in  which 
one  physical  process  is  the  cause  of 
another.  We  cannot  make  such  a  state- 
ment, that  is,  unless  we  assume  to  start 
with  that  reality  is  unrepresentable  in 
consciousness,  or  unless,  again,  we  go  back 
to  the  position  that  sensational  experience 
is  untrue,  because  it  is  different  from  that 
truer  reality  of  molecules  in  motion,  which 
science  tells  us  of:  and  then  we  have 
ceased  to  be  agnostics. 


THEISTIC   IDEALISM 


THEISTIC    IDEALISM 

E  have  traced  in  the  preceding 
chapters  the  attempts  on  the 
part  of  philosophy  to  discover 
some  conception  which  should  be  ade- 
quate to  the  nature  of  reality  as  a  whole. 
The  first  tendency,  we  found,  was  to 
make  the  conception  a  very  abstract  one ; 
the  concrete  facts  of  experience  were  set 
aside  in  order  to  get  at  some  peculiarly 
real  essence  of  reality  behind  them.  But 
this  attempt  had  to  pay  the  penalty  of 
failing  to  explain  the  things  which  thus 
had  been  ignored,  and  which  yet  were 
the  very  things  to  explain  which  philoso- 
phy had  been  called  into  existence.  A 
more  definite  conception,  therefore,  had 
267 


268  Theistic  Idealism 

to  be  attained,  and  it  soon  became  evi- 
dent that  the  only  category  which  stood 
any  chance  of  meeting  the  requirements, 
was  the  category  of  conscious  Hfe. 
Berkeley  and  Hegel  alike  were  agreed 
in  this,  that  the  effort  to  get  a  notion  of 
what  anything  can  be  outside  of  con- 
sciousness is  doomed  to  failure  in  ad- 
vance. Conscious  experience  is  the  only 
reality  we  know,  or  possibly  can  know, 
and  unless  it  represents  reality  truly,  we 
must  confess  that  we  have  no  idea  at 
all  of  what  ultimate  reality  is  like.  Of 
course  this  last  alternative  always  remains 
open ;  perhaps  we  do  not  know  what  ulti- 
mate reality  is  like :  but  if  this  be  true, 
it  is  not  a  conclusion  which  we  can  prove 
dogmatically,  but  only  remains  as  a  pos- 
sible alternative,  after  our  failure  to  ar- 
rive at  any  more  positive  result.  As  a 
reasoned  demonstration  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  knowledge,  agnosticism  cannot 
maintain  itself;  at  best  it  is  only  a  con- 
fession of  our  intellectual  defeat.     It  al- 


Theistic  Idealism  269 

ways  leaves  the  door  open,  therefore,  for 
a  new  attempt,  and  if  we  still  have  con- 
fidence to  make  the  trial,  then,  once  more, 
it  is  the  verdict  of  philosophy  that  in 
idealism  of  some  sort  and  fashion,  and 
in  idealism  alone,  is  there  any  hope  of 
finding  a  solution  whose  failure  is  not 
a  foregone  conclusion.  In  the  present 
chapter,  then,  the  effort  will  be  made  to 
arrive  at  some  positive  theory,  which  shall 
avoid  the  difficulties  which  the  previous 
arguments  have  made  us  familiar  with ; 
while  there  will  also  be  occasion  to  dif- 
ferentiate this  from  certain  other  types 
of  theory,  which  likewise  may  be  termed 
idealistic. 

The  essential  feature  of  an  idealistic 
philosophy  consists  in  this,  that  the  ulti- 
mate reality  which  constitutes  the  uni- 
verse is  conceived  after  the  analogy,  at 
least,  of  a  conscious  life.  There  are,  of 
course,  difficulties  which  such  a  theory 
has  to  meet,  and  these  may  be  considered 
in   connection  with   two   main  problems: 


270  Theistic  Idealism 

the  relation  in  which  this  conscious  real- 
ity stands  to  the  material  world,  and  the 
relation  which  it  bears  to  ourselves  as 
conscious  beings. 

In  examining  into  the  nature  of  know- 
ledge, we  have  already  been  led  to  a 
definite  theory  about  what  we  know  as 
material  existence.  Our  common-sense 
belief  is,  without  doubt,  that  the  things 
which  we  perceive  in  the  external  world 
exist  quite  independent  of  our  conscious- 
ness, and  exist,  too,  in  very  much  the 
way  they  are  perceived.  Berkeley's  no- 
tion that  we  can  reduce  the  world  to 
mere  sensations  of  our  own  is  altogether 
foreign  to  our  natural  thought.  Yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  found  it  quite  impos- 
sible to  give  to  objects  an  existence  by 
themselves,  apart  from  consciousness,  and 
still  retain  the  slightest  comprehension  of 
what  they  can  be  like.  But  why  should 
we  not  cease  trying  to  think  of  objects 
as  separate  realities  "f  why  should  their 
existence  not  be  an  existence  within  con- 


Theistic  Idealism  271 

sciousness,  where  alone  they  are  conceiv- 
able, but  in  a  consciousness  more  ultimate 
than  ours,  a  world  consciousness  ?  In 
this  way  we  could  maintain  at  once  their 
separate  reality  and  their  knowableness. 
Let  us  recall  again  the  previous  treat- 
ment of  the  problem  of  knowledge.  We 
found  that  the  condition  which  seems  to 
be  demanded  by  the  fact  of  knowledge 
is  this,  that  a  sensational  element  in  our 
experience  should  have  the  power  to 
stand  for  something  similar  to  it  in  real- 
ity at  large.  We  cannot  give  up  know- 
ledge without  divorcing  our  philosophical 
theories  from  all  those  practical  beliefs 
which  are  essential  to  our  active  life ;  if, 
then,  we  are  to  justify  it,  we  must  sup- 
pose that  ultimate  existence  is  of  a  nat- 
ure which  resembles,  in  some  degree,  our 
own  conscious  life,  and  that  what  we 
call  objects,  therefore,  are,  when  looked 
at  truly,  no  more  than  elements  in  this 
absolute  consciousness.  The  world  is  not, 
as  Berkeley  supposed,  unreal,  and  reduci- 


272  Theistic  Idealism 

ble  to  our  own  sensations;  these  sensa- 
tions really  stand,  as  they  claim  to  do, 
for  a  reality  beyond,  and  science,  there- 
fore, has  its  justification.  But  neither  is 
the  world  an  incomprehensible  world  of 
matter  divorced  from  spirit ;  it  exists 
only  as  it  forms  the  framework,  as  it 
were,  of  God's  conscious  life,  and  so  it 
has  no  need  to  be  distinguished  from 
God,  or  related  to  him,  as  if  it  were 
somehow  a  separate  thing. 

Understood  in  this  way,  we  have  an 
answer  to  those  problems  which  we  were 
unable  to  solve  in  the  earlier  chapters. 
How  are  we  to  get  a  unity  into  the  world 
which  shall  be  more  than  an  abstract 
unity,  and  which  shall  take  up  the  differ- 
ences as  an  essential  element  within  it- 
self.?  Not  by  looking  behind  things  for 
an  underlying,  static  substance,  but  by 
taking  the  whole  dynamic  process  which 
it  requires  just  this  manifold  of  different 
elements  to  constitute,  and  which,  again, 
we   can   understand   as   a  unity   only  by 


Theistic  Idealism  273 

looking  to  our  own  active  and  purposive 
lives.  The  world  can  be  a  unity  only  if 
it  is,  like  human  life,  a  unity  of  con- 
scious end.  It  is  this  conception  of  an 
end,  which  rules  in  the  complexity  of 
the  conscious  life,  needing  the  manifold 
of  elements  in  order  to  express  itself, 
and  yet  binding  them  all  together  into 
what  we  feel  directly  as  a  whole,  with- 
out which  the  parts  would  have  no  ex- 
istence, which  alone  shows  how  it  is 
conceivable  that  things  should  be  brought 
into  connection,  without  at  the  same  time 
losing  their  distinction.  The  unity  of 
the  world  cannot  be  understood  except 
as  the  unity  of  purpose,  which  is  carried 
out,  not  in  spite  of,  but  by  means  of 
differences;  and  such  a  purpose  has  no 
existence  outside  of  conscious  life. 

So,  too,  if  we  wish  to  understand  more 
in  detail  how  a  so-called  individual  object 
is  related  to  this  comprehensive  experi- 
ence, we  have,  again,  to  consider  what 
an  object  is  to  us.     Let  us  take  any  ob- 


274  Theistic  Idealism 

ject  which  enters  into  human  activities, 
the  brush,  say,  which  the  artist  uses  in 
his  work.  There  are  certain  sensations 
which  the  brush  gives  rise  to,  but  we  do 
not  consider  that  the  essence  of  the 
brush  consists  in  these;  we  define  the 
object  rather  by  the  use  to  which  it  is 
put.  The  sensations,  it  is  true,  are  pres- 
ent in  some  degree  even  when  the  artist 
is  actively  at  work  with  his  painting,  they 
form  part  of  that  sensational  content 
which  is  needed  to  make  the  experience 
concrete  and  actual ;  but  what  we  really 
mean  by  the  brush  is  defined  by  the 
purpose  which  it  serves.  Even  when  we 
think  of  it  as  a  perfectly  dead  and  un- 
changing "thing,"  this  fixed  content  that 
we  have  in  mind  in  reality  refers  back  all 
the  while  to  the  activities  where  the 
brush  comes  into  play.  So,  too,  the 
"real"  existence  of  any  external  object, 
as  a  tree  for  instance,  we  may  conceive 
to  be  the  part  which  this  plays  in  that 
intelligent,    purposive    life   which    makes 


Theistic  Idealism  275 

up  the  Absolute.  In  this  life,  also, 
there  is  what  we  still  may  call  the  sen- 
sational content,  although,  of  course, 
this  no  longer  stands  for  something  dis- 
tinct from  itself,  as  our  sensations  do ; 
and  this  content  to  some  extent  is  copied 
in  the  sensations  which  I  get  in  looking 
at  the  tree :  but  here,  again,  the  sensa- 
tional element  only  exists  as  it  is  used  in 
a  teleological  way,  and  the  real  thing  is 
the  purpose  or  the  meaning.  We  must, 
however,  notice  that  we  actually  recog- 
nize anything  as  a  separate  object  only 
when,  for  the  moment,  we  cease  to  use 
it.  While  the  artist  is  at  work,  he  does 
not  stop  to  think  of  his  brush  explicitly 
as  a  brush,  but  it  enters  simply  as  an 
element  into  the  whole  unitary  conscious- 
ness of  the  experience  he  is  undergoing. 
An  object  stands  out  separately,  as  an 
object,  only  as  it  ceases  for  the  time 
being  to  be  actively  used,  and,  instead, 
is  thought  about;  and  we  do  not  stop  to 
think,    unless    we    meet    some    difficulty 


276  Theistic  Idealism 

which  interferes  with  what  we  are  doing. 
If  the  brush  refuses  to  work  well  any 
longer,  then  the  artist  stops  his  painting 
and  begins  to  examine  the  brush  itself 
as  an  individual  object.  Our  normal 
attitude,  in  other  words,  is  not  thinking 
about  things,  but  doing  them ;  thinking 
is  a  mere  instrument,  which  ultimately 
must  issue  in  action,  and  which  has  for 
its  function  the  getting  rid  of  difficulties 
which  have  brought  our  activity  to  a 
standstill.  And  it  is,  again,  only  as 
they  are  thought  about,  not  as  they  enter 
into  active  life,  that  objects  seem  to  pos- 
sess for  us  that  separateness  of  existence 
which  we  commonly  have  in  mind  in  the 
notion  of  objects.  This  has,  therefore, 
to  be  remembered  when  we  try  to  inter- 
pret the  real  nature  of  the  external 
world.  Our  own  life  is  made  up  of  con- 
crete experience,  and  it  is  immediately 
open  to  us  as  a  whole,  and  so  we  are 
under  less  temptation  to  think  of  it  in 
terms   of    its   component  parts;    but   the 


Theistic  Idealism  277 

ultimate  reality  of  the  absolute  experi- 
ence we  are  able  to  get  at  only  indirectly, 
through  the  perception  of  individual  ob- 
jects, which  we  then  proceed  to  build 
together  into  a  world.  And  it  conse- 
quently seems  to  us  as  if  the  problem 
were  to  introduce,  in  a  secondary  way, 
a  connection  between  objects  which  first 
of  all  are  separate.  But  now  we  are 
able  to  recognize  that  it  only  is  the  limi- 
tations belonging  to  our  way  of  approach 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  world,  which  gives 
rise  to  such  an  assumption.  Our  own 
life  is  experienced  as  a  unity  to  begin 
with,  and  so  the  same  difficulty  is  not 
present  there;  but  God's  life  we  do  not 
thus  experience,  but  only  come  to  know 
it  piecemeal,  through  perception  or 
thought.  This  collection  of  fragments, 
however,  is  not  the  reality;  the  reality 
is  the  unitary  conscious  life,  within 
which  objects  are  not  felt  at  all  as  sepa- 
rate, any  more  than  the  brush  is  felt  as 
separate  when  the  artist  uses  it  in  paint- 


278  Theistic  Idealism 

ing.  Reality,  in  other  words,  is  not  the 
static  existence  which  we  take  it  to  be 
for  the  purposes  of  thought,  but  it  is  a 
conscious  activity;  objects  have  no  exist- 
ence, really,  except  as  they  enter  into 
such  a  dynamic  process. 

In  the  same  way  we  shall  have  also  a 
key  to  the  solution  of  that  problem  of 
causation  which,  especially  since  the 
time  of  Hume,  has  occupied  so  large  a 
place  in  philosophical  discussions.  We 
have  seen  how  hard  it  is  to  conceive  of 
a  connecting  link  between  events,  and 
yet  common  sense  decidedly  objects  to 
Hume's  conclusion,  that  the  mere  follow- 
ing of  one  event  upon  another  in  time 
will  exhaust  all  that  we  mean  by  causa- 
tion. Evidently  we  mean  to  express 
more  than  this  when  we  use  the  word; 
we  mean  that  one  event  somehow  de- 
pends upon  another.  And  in  the  con- 
ception of  reality  as  a  conscious  life, 
the  expression  of  a  rational  purpose,  we 
have   the   only  clew  to  what  such  a  con- 


Theistic  Idealism  279 

nection  can  be  like.  Two  events  will 
have  an  intelligible  bond  between  them, 
if  they  both  are  elements  in  the  working 
out  of  a  conscious  end :  one  will  con- 
dition the  other,  not  through  its  own 
power  as  a  separate  thing,  but  as  one 
step  in  a  process  conditions  the  next 
step,  through  the  controlling  influence 
of  a  purpose,  which  only  can  carry  itself 
out  by  the  intelligent  selection  of  means 
which  mutually  implicate  one  another. 
Again  we  come  back  to  the  recognition 
that,  to  understand  the  possibility  of  a 
unity  of  things,  we  must  presuppose  this 
unity  at  the  start,  and  can  never  build 
it  up  by  adding  separate  things  together; 
and  the  only  unity  we  can  understand  is 
the  unity  of  end  or  purpose,  in  which 
the  parts  are  related  to  each  other  as 
those  steps  which  are  mutually  involved 
in  carrying  the  purpose  out.  What  we 
call  power,  then,  or  force,  is  not  an 
external  something  operating  between 
separate   objects;    it    stands   for  the    re- 


280  Theistic  Idealism 

storing  of  that  element  of  activity,  of 
the  fact  of  belonging  originally  to  a  uni- 
tary process,  which  for  the  time  had 
been  ignored.  Force,  in  other  words, 
when  translated  into  conscious  terms, 
is  will;  but  by  will,  again,  we  shall  not 
mean  a  special  power  which  enters  into 
our  life  at  particular  points  in  order  to 
direct  it.  Our  whole  life  is  a  life  of 
action,  of  movement,  and  this  movement 
is  what  we  mean  by  will ;  it  is  not  some- 
thing which  interferes  in  the  conscious 
life,  but  that  whole  life,  as  an  activity,  is 
its  expression. 

It  seems  to  be  possible,  then,  to  get 
an  intelligible  notion  of  what  the  nature 
of  the  outer  world  may  be,  by  applying 
to  it  that  concept  of  a  conscious  life,  of 
which  we  find  the  possibility  in  our 
own  experience.  But  we  have  not  yet 
got  reality  completely  defined.  What 
we  know  simply  as  nature  cannot  be 
the  whole  of  such  a  consciousness,  any 
more    than  we    can   state  our  own  life  in 


Theistic  Idealism  281 

terms  of  the  framework  of  objective 
facts  which  enters  into  it,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  side  of  meaning,  of  emotional 
appreciation  and  spiritual  significance. 
We  cannot  conceive  of  reality  in  purely 
natural  terms  because,  in  the  first  place, 
it  is  an  activity,  and  an  activity  involves 
an  end,  which  goes  beyond  anything  in 
the  way  of  mere  natural  phenomena; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  the  natural 
world  does  not  take  in  our  own  con- 
scious lives,  and  the  facts  of  social  devel- 
opment, which  yet  form  a  very  essential 
part  of  the  universe.  We  may  try  to 
make  our  conception  of  reality  more 
definite,  then,  by  considering  it  in  con- 
nection with  this  problem  of  the  rela- 
tion which  the  ultimate  reality  bears  to 
finite  selves. 

We  shall  have  to  assume  at  the  start 
that  what  we  call  a  self  cannot  possibly 
be  understood  in  isolation,  but  must  be 
regarded,  like  everything  else,  as  a  part 
of   the  whole  universe,  in  which  it  has  a 


282  Theistic  Idealism 

certain  place,  and  performs  a  certain 
function.  But  there  are  two  general 
directions  in  which  the  nature  of  this 
connection  of  the  self  with  the  universe 
may  be  looked  for.  We  may  hold  that 
it  enters  into  the  world  self  as  part  of 
a  continuous  consciousness,  as  a  sensa- 
tion is  a  part  of  my  conscious  life ;  or 
we  may  accept  the  apparent  separate- 
ness  of  the  world  from  the  life  of  indi- 
viduals, and  may  try  to  conceive  of  the 
unity  in  a  way  which  shall  not  be  incom- 
patible with  a  relative  independence. 
The  latter  is  the  attitude  of  theism,  as 
the  former  is  of  pantheism. 

The  ground  for  this  difference  in  con- 
ception goes  back  largely  to  a  differ- 
ence which  has  already  been  suggested, 
but  which  needs  to  be  brought  out  more 
distinctly  —  the  difference  between  the 
idea  of  reality  as  a  passive  state  of  con- 
sciousness, and  as  an  activity,  reality  as 
thought,  and  as  active  will.  The  ten- 
dency  in    philosophy    has    always    been 


Theistic  Idealism  283 

to  represent  the  Absolute,  after  the 
analogy  of  abstract  thought,  as  a  kind 
of  static  existence.  When  I  think  about 
any  particular  reality,  I  assume  that  it 
is  not  changing  in  the  meanwhile,  or 
else  I  should  be  meaning  something  dif- 
ferent each  successive  moment,  or  rather 
I  should  never  know  what  I  really 
did  mean.  The  ideal  for  thought,  that 
is,  is  to  grasp  reality  in  a  single  pulse 
of  consciousness,  within  which  each  ele- 
ment shall  take  its  proper  place,  and  the 
whole  form  a  complete  and  absolutely 
exhaustive  system.  Taking  reality  as 
such  a  timeless  conscious  whole,  a  whole 
of  knowledge,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  see 
how  any  finite  life  can  come  into  a  unity 
with  it,  except  as  it  forms  directly  one 
of  its  component  parts.  If  reality  is  a  fact 
complete  once  for  all,  anything  existing  in 
any  sense  apart  from  it  would  seem  to 
have   no  excuse  for  being. 

A  theory  of  this  sort  is  open,  however, 
to   several   objections.      The   gist   of   the 


284  Theistic  Idealism 

conception,  once  more,  amounts  to  this. 
There  is  a  certain  fact,  my  conscious  life, 
which  seems  to  be  a  somewhat  limited 
affair,  but  this  apparent  limitation  is  in 
reality  an  illusion.  Beyond  my  life  there 
stretches,  without  break,  a  wider  life, 
which  has  the  same  consciousness  that 
I  have,  but  much  more  besides;  and  the 
perplexities  and  contradictions  of  life,  for 
me,  are  only  the  result  of  this  limitation, 
while  for  a  more  inclusive  consciousness 
they  are  reduced  to  harmony.  But  now 
the  implication  of  this  would  seem  to 
be,  that  the  notion  we  can  get  of  reality 
is  so  infinitely  removed  from  the  final 
truth,  that  it  is  hard  to  make  the  differ- 
ence between  what  for  us  seems  truth, 
and  error,  a  very  vital  matter.  False- 
hood is  only  limitation ;  everything  is 
true,  but  it  may  not  be  the  whole  truth ; 
and  it  only  can  grow  truer  as  the  circle 
of  its  existence  widens  to  take  in  a  con- 
stantly increasing  area  of  reality.  But 
then  the  truth  of  any  state  of  conscious- 


Theistic  Idealism  285 

ness  is  measured  directly,  so  to  speak, 
by  the  amount  of  room  it  takes  up  in 
the  total  sum  of  the  universe.  We  can- 
not speak  of  all  reality  being  present 
ideally  in  each  particular  fact ;  it  may 
be  true  that  an  absolute  vision  could 
see  such  implications  in  it,  but  for  its 
own  consciousness  each  fact  is  only  the 
part  which'  it  seems  to  be,  and  is  more 
or  less  true  according  as  it  is  a  greater 
or  a  smaller  part.  And  when  we  think 
how  infinitely  small  a  part  of  the  uni- 
verse any  conscious  life  makes  up,  we 
have  to  face  the  suspicion  that  com- 
pleter reality  may,  and  in  all  likelihood 
does,  so  overwhelm  the  little  piece  of 
truth  that  we  have  got,  as  to  make  it 
practically  unrecognizable.  Between  the 
worst  of  human  error,  and  its  highest 
truth,  there  must  be  a  vastly  smaller 
gulf  than  between  this  latter  and  the 
all-inclusive  unity  ;  and  if  the  possession 
of  perfect  knowledge  is  the  goal  of  liv- 
ing, as  on  this  theory  it  would   seem  to 


286  Theistic  Idealism 

be,  the  effort,  in  the  face  of  such  pitiful 
results,  hardly  seems  worth  the  while. 
If  this  conclusion  seems  not  altogether 
certain,  there  is  another  difficulty  which 
is  perhaps  more  obvious.  Nothing  can 
have  the  least  pretensions  to  reality,  on 
such  a  theory,  which  does  not  enter  into 
the  all-embracing  consciousness  of  God. 
But  is  it  possible  to  hold  td  this,  and 
still  admit  the  apparent  limitation  of 
human  life?  There  cannot  be  the  slight- 
est doubt  that  our  experience  seems  to 
us,  truly  enough,  to  be  a  limited  one ;  but 
how  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  such  a 
limitation  in  God's  life?  If  the  barriers 
are  all  taken  away  for  him,  how  does  the 
limit  in  any  sense  still  remain  ?  It  may 
be  said  that,  as  the  sense  of  the  limit  is 
a  fact  for  us,  so  also  it  will  enter,  as 
something  which  he  knows,  into  God's 
consciousness,  although  he  does  not  feel 
it  as  a  limitation.  And  it  is  pointed  out 
that  a  belief  which  at  one  time  may  for 
us   be   final,   can,    as   a   result   of    subse- 


Theistic  Idealism  287 

quent  experience,  take  its  place  within 
a  larger  unity,  which,  while  it  recognizes 
the  partial  truth  of  this  belief,  transforms 
it  by  means  of  a  completer  knowledge. 
But  that  whole  conscious  state  which  the 
former  belief  represents  is  not  trans- 
ferred bodily  into  the  later  experience ; 
on  the  contrary,  we  recognize  that  our 
present  state  is  altogether  different  from 
the  other  one,  and  that  the  two  can 
exist  only  as  experiences  distinct  in  time, 
and  not  together.  With  our  former  be- 
lief there  went  a  certain  tone  of  feeling, 
an  emotional  tinge,  —  the  feeling,  it  may 
be,  of  despair;  that  feeling  now  is  gone, 
and  there  only  remains  a  knowledge  of 
it,  as  of  something  in  the  past.  So  also 
if  we  grant  that  our  sense  of  limitation 
enters  into  God's  knowledge,  we  are  by 
that  very  fact  making  it  an  altogether 
different  thing,  for  God,  from  what  it  is 
for  us.  God  may  know  it,  but  he  can- 
not feel  it  as  we  do.  For  us  it  per- 
meates   and    gives    color    to    our    entire 


288  Theistic  Idealism 

conscious  life,  and  this  is  something  that 
it  cannot  do  for  God,  unless  he  too  is 
limited.  If,  then,  the  feeling  of  limita- 
tion is  a  fact,  it  is  a  fact  which  cannot 
exist  within  the  life  of  God.  The  very 
insistence  upon  the  transformation  which 
our  experience  undergoes  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  God,  is  a  direct  admission 
that  it  is  not  our  experience  which 
exists  there;  it  cannot  be  the  same  if 
it  has  been  transformed.  The  whole 
theory  is  based  upon  the  fallacy  of  sup- 
posing that  a  conscious  fact  is  a  hard 
and  fast  thing,  which  can  enter  into  all 
sorts  of  combinations,  and  still  remain 
unaltered.  The  truth  is  that  the  being 
of  a  conscious  fact  is  constituted  very 
largely  by  its  setting.  Even  the  sensa- 
tion which  I  get  from  an  object  is  not 
just  the  same  sensation  before  and  after 
I  begin  to  attend  explicitly  to  it;  the 
sensation  is  changed  by  its  altered  rela- 
tionships. It  is  impossible,  then,  to  say 
that  my  conscious  life  enters  into  a  larger 


Theistic  Idealism  289 

consciousness,  except  by  confusing  my 
experience  as  I  feel  it^  with  a  knowledge 
of  this  experience  on  the  part  of  God. 
But,  as  we  have  seen,  a  knowledge  of 
anything  never  is  the  thing  itself,  but 
always  implies  the  separate  existence  of 
what  is  known.  So  that  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  possible  to  merge  finite  ex- 
perience in  a  universal  experience,  and 
leave  it  with  no  separate  existence  of  its 
own ;  if  it  really  were  part  of  such  a 
wider  experience,  the  illusion  of  finite- 
ness  and  limitation  would  not  exist. 

We  have  seen  that  the  theory  is  based 
upon  the  conception  of  reality  as  a  state 
of  knowledge,  and  of  perfect  reality  as  a 
complete  state  of  knowledge,  in  which 
everything  has  its  place  as  an  element. 
At  best  this  makes  human  achievement  a 
wholly  negative  thing,  the  mere  question 
of  a  trifle  more  or  less  of  error,  which, 
however,  can  never  be  wholly  overcome. 
And  since  truth  already  exists  perfect  and 
complete,  it  seems  a  useless  trouble  thus 


290  Tbeistic  Idealism 

to  multiply  imperfect  copies  of  itself.  Nor 
is  it  very  clear  that  a  mere  state  of  know- 
ledge, as  a  timeless  act,  gives  after  all  the 
unity  to  life  which  philosophy  is  in  search 
of.  It  is  the  business  of  thought  to  hold 
things  apart,  to  distinguish,  and  we  have 
found  how  difficult  it  is,  when  once  things 
are  separated,  ever  to  get  them  together 
again.  The  only  unity  we  have  been  able 
to  discover  is  the  unity  of  end  or  purpose ; 
but  purpose  involves  activity,  and  activity 
seems  to  have  no  place  in  a  world  of 
unchanging  truth,  complete  from  the 
beginning. 

To  turn,  then,  to  the  second  alternative, 
if  we  accept  the  results  of  the  previous 
chapters,  and  look  at  ultimate  reality,  not 
as  it  is  for  abstract  thought,  but  as  a  move- 
ment, which,  indeed,  we  can  think  of,  but 
which  can  never  actually  be  present  in  any 
thought  experience,  but  only  known  by  it, 
we  may  perhaps  be  able  to  gain  a  concep- 
tion of  the  unity  of  the  world  which  at 
least  will  not  be  open  to   the   foregoing 


Theistic  Idealism  291 

objections,  and  which  will  admit  the 
amount  of  separateness  on  the  part  of 
individual  selves  which  common  sense  de- 
mands, without  making  them  separate 
absolutely.  If  we  look  for  that  which 
forms  the  essence  of  our  own  conscious 
lives,  we  shall  find  that  it  consists  in  work- 
ing actively  for  a  social  end.  Our  life  is 
what  we  do,  consciously  realized ;  and  this 
doing  involves  of  necessity  the  world  and 
other  selves.  I  am  born  into  a  social 
world,  just  as  I  am  born  into  a  physical 
world,  and  a  life  that  should  be  purely 
individual,  that  did  not  act  continually 
with  reference  to  its  social  environment, 
would  be  an  unthinkable  abstraction.  We 
have  our  unity,  therefore,  in  that  common 
end  which  binds  all  actions  together,  and 
which  each  self  may  corrsciously  appreci- 
ate ;  and  yet  that  does  not  prevent  the  in- 
dividual from  having  his  own  life,  which 
others  realize  in  its  effects  and  its  relation- 
ships, but  which  no  one  but  himself  can 
immediately  experience.     Every  act  is  an 


292  Theistic  Idealism 

act  in  a  common  world,  which  has  innu- 
merable consequences  for  every  other  be- 
ing, and  which,  in  its  place,  is  an  essential 
act,  without  which  the  world  could  not  be 
what  it  is.  And  the  conscious  apprecia- 
tion of  those  acts  which  we  call  ours,  is 
what  makes  up  our  conscious  lives.  In 
so  far  as  the  act  is  overt,  what  we  call  a 
physical  act,  it  literally  changes  the  whole 
world,  and  through  its  results  it  is  known 
by,  and  influences,  others  than  ourselves. 
But  our  conscious  appreciation  of  the  act 
and  its  results  —  and  this,  as  we  shall  see, 
determines  the  act  to  be  what  it  is  —  is 
ours  alone.  Because  the  act  really  has 
these  social  results,  and  because  we  can 
know  them,  and  intend  them  to  work,  as 
they  do,  for  a  common  end,  the  world  is  a 
unity,  and  each  act  of  our  lives  has  the 
value  which  comes  from  being  an  essential 
step  in  the  world's  progress ;  but  because, 
also,  our  immediate  consciousness  of  the 
act  is,  as  a  direct  sensational  experience, 
a  thing  which  no  one  but  ourselves  can 


Theistic  Idealism  293 

have,  our  life  has  a  certain  separateness 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  universe,  although 
it  never  would  exist  unless  it  were  a  con- 
sciousness which,  through  the  medium  of 
its  physical  expression,  formed  an  essential 
element  in  the  meaning  of  this  world  be- 
yond it.  If,  then,  we  transfer  this  to  the 
absolute  experience,  the  highest  concep- 
tion we  can  get  of  the  world  is  the  con- 
ception of  a  social  whole,  within  which 
God  represents  that  ultimate  self  upon 
which  all  the  rest  depend.  In  this  way 
we  perhaps  may  get  some  notion  of  how 
it  should  be  possible  that  God  can  have  a 
conscious  life  distinct  from  ours,  and  yet 
including  it.  As  soon  as  we  speak  of  God 
as  another  self,  we  are  met  at  once  with 
the  objection  that  this  limits  God,  because 
it  makes  him  less  than  the  whole ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  our  own  reality  is  en- 
dangered, if  we  are  put  outside  of  Go* 
But  after  all  it  is  not  clear  why  the  con- 
cept of  creative  power,  working  in  accord- 
ance with  a  conscious  purpose,  should  not 


294  Theistic  Idealism 

furnish  all  the  unity  we  need.  Why 
should  we  not  suppose  that  the  nature  of 
the  Absolute  self  is,  like  ours,  essentially 
a  social  nature,  and  that  his  life  is  a  con- 
scious life  of  active  cooperation  in  a  social 
world  with  finite  selves,  whom  he  himself 
brings  into  being  ?  In  this  way  each  self 
may  have  its  own  inviolable  selfhood  of 
immediate  experience,  which  no  one  but 
itself  can  be,  and  which  all  others,  God 
included,  can  only  know,  while  yet  we  do 
not  need  to  take  the  self  as  an  original 
and  inexplicable  bit  of  existence  quite  in- 
dependent of  God.  Ultimately  it  has  no 
real  independence,  since  it  comes  into  be- 
ing through  the  power  of  God  and  with 
reference  to  his  purposes,  while  its  every 
act  enters  into  the  meaning  of  God's  life, 
which  itself  is  constituted  by  those  social 
relationships  whose  develbpment  forms  the 
Iruth  of  history.  Unless  we  are  ready  to 
deny  outright  that  God  can  have  the  power 
to  grant  to  individual  selves  the  enjoyment 
of  a  life  from  which,  as  immediate  feeling, 


Theistic  Idealism  295 

though  not  in  the  form  of  knowledge,  he 
excludes  even  himself,  there  does  not  seem 
to  be  any  difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  a 
theory  which  is  insuperable,  and  it  has  the 
advantage  of  giving  to  that  concept  of 
social  life,  which  modern  thought  is  tend- 
ing more  and  more  to  come  back  to  as  its 
final  word,  a  basis  in  the  inmost  and  essen- 
tial reality  of  the  world. 

There  has  already  been  implied  in 
this  a  certain  conception  of  what  the 
nature  of  a  self  consists  in.  Hume  was 
not  able  to  find  the  self,  and  naturally 
so,  for  the  reason  that  he  looked  for  it 
in  some  particular  element  of  conscious- 
ness, whereas  it  is  the  conscious  life  in 
its  entirety,  taken,  however,  not  as  a 
string  of  conscious  states,  but  as  an  ac- 
tivity, as  bound  together  in  the  unity  of 
a  conscious  purpose.  The  real  essence 
of  selfhood  is  this:  the  consciousness 
of  an  active  experience,  in  which  each 
step  is  bound  together  with  every  other 
by  its  relation  to  an  inclusive  end,  which 


296  Theistic  Idealism 

is  immediately  realized  in  every  part. 
Self-consciousness,  therefore,  does  not 
mean  an  occupation  with  oneself  to  the 
exclusion  of  everything  else;  while  the 
act  is  the  act  of  the  self,  it  is  also  an 
act  with  numberless  relationships,  which 
constitute  its  meaning,  and  which,  as 
such,  are  consciously  realized.  The  self 
is  social  in  its  very  nature.  This  imme- 
diate experience  has  value  only  as  it 
is  felt  to  enter  into  the  larger  unity  of 
the  world.  True  self-consciousness  is 
a  consciousness  of  the  value  of  the  act 
which  makes  up  the  self,  in  terms,  how- 
ever, of  the  social  whole  into  which  the 
act  enters  as  an  element.  While,  how- 
ever, this  definition  will  serve  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  there  seems  after  all  to  be 
something  in  the  conception  of  a  finite 
self  which  it  fails  to  cover.  If  our  con- 
scious life  were,  not  a  partial,  but  a  per- 
fect whole,  if  a  single  purpose  ruled  it 
consciously  from  first  to  last,  which  we 
felt   summed   up   our   entire   nature,  and 


Theistic  Idealism  297 

so  if  our  whole  being  were  consciously 
expressed  in  each  successive  moment  of 
experience,  then  the  mere  statement  of 
our  conscious  life  would  adequately  state 
the  self.  And  something  of  this  nature 
we  may  suppose  the  ultimate  self  to 
be.  But  our  own  lives  are  far  more 
dependent  and  more  fragmentary  than 
this  comes  to,  and  we  can  hardly  avoid 
feeling  that  there  is  some  justification 
for  the  old  idea  of  a  substance  or  soul 
which  lies  back  of,  and  furnishes  the 
foundation  for,  our  clearly  conscious  self. 
Any  act  that  we  perform  seems  to  us 
to  express  only  a  part  of  ourselves ; 
back  of  it  there  are  .all  those  latent 
habits  which  make  up  our  "character," 
all  the  realm  of  the  unconscious;  and 
what  are  we  to  say  of  what  we  call 
the  tendencies  of  our  nature,  the  hidden 
impulses  and  dispositions  whose  existence 
we  never  surmise  till  some  occasion  calls 
them  forth,  and  we  suddenly  wake  up 
to    find    ourselves    such    persons    as    we 


298  Theistic  Idealism 

never  had  suspected  ?  We  have  no 
need  to  dispute  the  facts,  but  what  they 
stand  for  is  simply  this,  that  the  roots 
of  our  being  lie  far  deeper  in  reality 
than  any  explicit  consciousness  of  ours. 
We  do  not  need,  however,  to  take  the 
"  soul "  as  something  mysterious  and 
unknown;  we  have  a  very  tangible 
reality  at  hand  already  in  the  human 
body,  where  science  long  ago  found  the 
explanation  of  just  these  facts  we  are 
trying  to  account  for.  But  this  does 
not  mean  that  the  foundation  of  the 
self  is  matter;  we  must  interpret  it  in 
accordance  with  our  conclusion  as  to 
what  the  reality  of  matter  is.  For  the 
body  represents  only  a  certain  element 
in  the  conscious  life  of  the  Absolute  — 
the  point  of  connection  between  the  in- 
dependent reality  of  our  own  conscious 
existence,  and  the  rest  of  the  universe. 
It  represents  the  capital  which  is  given 
us  to  start  with,  a  capital  which,  as  evo- 
lution   shows,    sums    up    a    long    line    of 


Theistic  Idealism  299 

achievement  in  the  past,  and  connects 
us  with  the  history  of  the  whole  world. 
Our  conscious  self,  the  true  moral  and 
responsible  self,  the  self  as  the  whole 
of  an  experience  which  is  consciously 
realized,  represents  the  use  which  is 
made  of  this  capital.  It  is  because  our 
conscious  life  comes  back  constantly  to 
the  organic  body,  and  is  based  from  be- 
ginning to  end  upon  the  activities  of 
that  life  process  which,  again,  is  only 
an  element  in  the  larger  process  of  the 
world,  that  it  never  can  be  merely  indi- 
vidual, but  must  always  be  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  life  which  is  dependent  and 
related.  But  each  conscious  act  not  only 
grows  out  of  bodily  conditions,  but  in 
turn  it  modifies  these  conditions ;  it  reg- 
isters itself  in  the  body,  and,  through 
that,  by  means  of  the  bodily  activities, 
in  reality  as  a  whole.  In  the  structure 
of  the  body  our  whole  past  achievement 
lies  summed  up,  ready  to  assert  itself 
when   the   occasion   comes.       That   more 


300  Theisttc  Idealism 

fundamental  self,  then,  which  lies  be- 
hind the  passing  conscious  expression, 
is  in  reality  the  whole  sum  of  our  origi- 
nal capital  and  of  the  modifications  in 
it  which  our  life  experience  has  pro- 
duced, indelibly  imprinted  in  what  we 
call  the  material  world,  but  which  is 
actually  the  life  of  God. 

In  addition  to  the  problems  which  have 
thus  been  briefly  noticed,  there  is  one 
other  fundamental  difficulty  which  has 
come  into  a  special  prominence  in  con- 
nection with  the  results  of  scientific 
theory.  It  is  a  difficulty  which  has  been 
spoken  of  already.  Our  conscious  life 
is  something  which  exists  beyond  those 
physical  facts  which  science  deals  with, 
and  apparently  it  does  not  come  under 
the  same  laws  with  them.  Every  fact 
in  the  world  of  matter  science  tries  to 
account  for  on  purely  physical  grounds, 
as  due  to  previous  physical  conditions; 
and  so  consciousness  would  seem  to  be 
a   mere   impertinence   when   it  comes   to 


Theistic  Idealism  301 

explaining  an  event  in  the  outer  world, 
and  it  would  not  appear  to  have  the 
power  of  exerting  any  influence  what- 
ever, without  breaking  into  the  scientific 
formulae.  It  has,  accordingly,  become 
a  widely  accepted  theory,  that  physical 
facts,  represented  in  the  movements  of 
the  brain,  and  conscious  facts,  go  along, 
indeed,  parallel  to  each  other,  but  with- 
out any  causal  relationship  between  them. 
Consciousness  is  a  mere  epiphenomenon, 
a  bare  added  fact,  which  has  no  signifi- 
cance in  determining  what  the  course  of 
physical  events  shall  be. 

In  so  far  as  such  a  theory  supposes 
that  matter  is  the  reality  of  which  mind 
is  only  an  unnecessary  adjunct,  or,  again, 
as  with  Spinoza,  that  mind  and  matter 
are  equally  real  aspects  or  sides  of  a 
single  ultimate  existence,  it  already  has 
been  sufficiently  criticised.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  keep  matter  and  consciousness  thus 
on  an  equality,  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
the    former   is   known  only   in   conscious 


302  Tbeistic  Idealism 

terms.  The  very  phrase  "  sides  or  as- 
pects "  has  no  meaning  except  as  we  post- 
ulate a  consciousness  within  which  they 
appear  as  aspects,  and  so  consciousness 
gets  at  once  the  upper  hand.  There  is, 
however,  still  another  possible  conception 
which  avoids  this  epistemological  diffi- 
culty. We  may  grant,  that  is,  the  ideal- 
istic result  that  consciousness  is  the  sole 
reality,  and  maintain  that  the  material 
world  is  only  the  phenomenal  aspect  of 
what  in  its  real  nature  is  a  conscious 
existence.  That  particular  bit  of  reality 
which  makes  up  my  own  life  I  experience 
immediately  as  consciousness,  but  all  other 
reality  I  know  only  indirectly,  and  it 
appears  to  me  phenomenally  in  terms  of 
matter.  But  I  can  infer  the  nature  of 
the  reality  behind  these  phenomena,  be- 
cause I  know  one  section  of  it  already 
in  my  own  conscious  life. 

The  advantage  of  the  theory  lies  in 
this,  that  it  enables  us  to  admit  the  scien- 
tific demand  that  consciousness  should  not 


Theistic  Idealism  303 

come  in  to  interfere  with  physical  laws, 
and  still  does  not  compel  us  to  thrust 
consciousness  aside  as  a  nonentity  in  the 
universe.  Consciousness  does  not  inter- 
fere with  matter,  because  matter  is  con- 
sciousness; there  is  no  second  thing  to 
come  in  from  the  outside.  Another  person 
looking  at  me  sees  a  body  and  a  nervous 
system,  acting  in  accordance  with  certain 
laws ;  my  consciousness  does  not  influence 
these  laws  as  a  foreign  fact,  because  the 
reality  of  what  another  person  sees  as 
a  nervous  change  is  my  consciousness. 
What  I  experience  directly  as  a  conscious 
fact  appears  to  an  observer  phenomenally 
as  a  brain  movement,  and  physical  laws 
are  but  the  phenomenal  side  of  conscious 
laws.  Just  as  my  brain,  accordingly, 
represents  my  conscious  life,  so  every 
physical  fact  is,  we  may  suppose,  in 
reality  a  conscious  fact;  and  as  each 
physical  phenomenon  enters  into  a  larger 
combination  with  other  phenomena  to 
form  at  last  the  universe,  a  great  whole 


304  Theistic  Idealism 

bound  together  by  universal  laws,  so  the 
realities  for  which  these  phenomena  stand 
enter  into  more  and  more  comprehensive 
combinations,  till  they  finally  make  up  the 
universal  consciousness  of  God. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice 
some  of  the  difficulties  which  a  theory 
like  this  suggests.  It  has  just  been  seen 
that  the  conception  of  individual  selves 
as  entering  directly  into  a  universal  con- 
sciousness is  not  a  satisfactory  one.  Then, 
too,  the  theory  fails  entirely  to  meet  those 
requirements  which  were  brought  out  in 
analyzing  knowledge.  It  is  not  clear  how 
we  can  get  to  a  knowledge  that  anything 
exists  at  all  beyond  our  own  bit  of  con- 
sciousness ;  and  since  at  best  we  can 
know  it,  in  detail,  only  as  it  is  not,  we 
do  not  seem  to  be  very  far  advanced. 
And  one  other  consideration  now  may  be 
added  to  these.  That  which  I  call  my 
brain  is,  in  reality,  my  conscious  life,  and 
of  this  conscious  life  it  is  clear  that  the 
mathematical  relationships  which  science 


Theistic  Idealism  305 

finds  in  my  brain  movements  form  no 
part  whatsoever.  Since,  then,  this  par- 
ticular bit  of  reality  is  only  what  it  is  for 
consciousness,  the  relationships  of  science 
are  not  present  in  it;  they  are  phe- 
nomena, and  only  exist  for  another  mind. 
But  now  for  complete  reality,  or  God, 
there  can  be  no  appearance,  but  things 
are  seen  only  as  they  are;  phenomenal 
existence  is  only  possible  to  that  which 
is  a  part  of  reality,  and  for  which  there 
is  another  part  outside  itself  which  can 
appear  to  it.  So  that  the  conclusion 
seems  to  be  that  the  facts  of  science 
have  no  existence  for  the  ultimate  reality, 
or  God.  If  God  were  really  conscious 
of  that  framework  of  the  world  which 
science  constructs,  I  also,  it  would  seem, 
ought  to  be  immediately  conscious  of  the 
particular  part  of  this  which  corresponds 
to  the  section  of  reality  which  I  make 
up,  since  there  is  no  more  to  this  section 
of  reality  than  I  am  conscious  of.  While, 
then,  the  theory  is  originated  to  meet  the 


306  Theistic  Idealism 

demands  of  scientific  method,  it  fails 
after  all  to  furnish  any  sufficient  basis 
for  science  to  rest  upon. 

We  may  still  ask,  therefore,  whether 
it  may  not  be  possible  to  justify  the  de- 
mand of  science  that  everything  should 
be  explained  in  terms  of  mechanism  or 
natural  law,  with  which  no  outside  influ- 
ence is  to  be  permitted  in  any  way  to  in- 
terfere, on  the  theory  which  has  already 
been  suggested  in  the  present  chapter. 
The  question  evidently  at  bottom  is  that 
of  the  relation  of  mechanism  to  teleology, 
and  in  order  to  answer  it  we  must  con- 
sider more  carefully  what  is  really  im- 
plied in  these  two  concepts.  And  we 
shall  find  that  the  trouble  has  been 
caused  by  taking  mechanism  as  if  it 
stood  for  a  final  explanation,  whereas  it 
only  tells  us  about  the  how  of  a  thing, 
the  way  in  which,  not  the  reason  for 
which,  it  is  done.  There  is,  consequently, 
no  inherent  contradiction  between  mech- 
anism and  teleology,  if  we  drop  the  idea 


Theistic  Idealism  307 

that  the  latter  is  a  special  force,  which 
some  things  can  be  explained  without, 
but  which  needs  occasionally  to  be  in- 
voked as  a  superior  and  supernatural 
influence.  Mechanism  will  not  exclude 
teleology,  if  only  we  admit  that  a  pur- 
posive act  does  not  have  necessarily  to  be 
a  lawless  act,  but  may  show  in  its  working 
a  perfectly  definite  law  or  mechanism. 
Mechanism,  once  more,  simply  denotes 
the  relationships  which  are  expressed  in 
how  a  thing  is  done,  and  it  makes  no 
difference  to  it  that  the  doing  should  all 
the  while  be  working  out  an  intelligent 
end.  The  notion  that  it  does  make  a 
difference  depends  upon  a  conception  of 
reality  which  already  has  been  found  un- 
tenable—  the  notion  that  the  essence  of 
reality  is  in  the  parts  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed, and  not  in  the  whole.  So  we  take 
a  number  of  individual  atoms,  and.  sup- 
pose that  each,  with  its  own  separate 
motion,  is  the  original  fact,  and  then  that 
they  combine  mechanically  to  form   cer- 


308  Theistic  Idealism 

tain  secondary  products.  But  actually 
the  motion  of  each  atom  is  what  it  is  only 
as  it  forms  a  part  of  the  whole  world. 
It  has  no  existence  by  itself,  but  only  as 
the  one  universe  has  a  particular  expres- 
sion in  it.  And  this  world,  again,  we 
have  seen  can  be  conceived  as  a  unity 
only  as  it  is  a  unity  of  conscious  pur- 
pose. Teleology,  therefore,  comes  first, 
the  unity  of  the  purposive  life  of  God. 
But  that  purposive  life  does  not  move  at 
haphazard,  but  in  accordance  with  law, 
with  order,  with  regularity.  Between  the 
different  elements  in  it  which,  in  com- 
ing to  know  the  world,  we  distinguish, 
there  are  relationships  which  we  repre- 
sent in  terms  of  mathematically  exact 
laws.  These  laws  show  how  reality  acts, 
and  enable  us  to  forecast  and  govern  the 
processes  of  nature ;  why  they  act  in  this 
way  js  not  a  problem  for  science,  but  for 
philosophy  and  life.  Conceivably  all 
natural  processes  might  be  reduced  to  a 
single  formula,  but  that  would  make  real- 


Theistic  Idea. 


ity  no  whit  less  purposive.  It  is  not  a 
question  between  purpose  and  law,  but 
between  purpose  and  chance,  and  that 
the  world  is  governed  by  chance,  science 
itself  is  as  much  interested  to  disprove 
as  philosophy.  It  is,  indeed,  all  the  more 
difficult,  now  that  science,  in  the  theory 
of  evolution,  has  shown  the  unity  of  the 
world  so  clearly,  to  resist  the  impression 
of  purpose  of  some  sort  in  the  long 
stretch  of  material  development  and  of 
social  growth.  Reality  is  not  simply  the 
swirl  of  nebulous  mist  with  which  the 
process  starts,  but  it  is  the  process  as  a 
whole;  and  if  the  issue  has  shown  itself 
to  be  in  some  degree  a  harmonious  and 
intelligible  one,  we  have  no  right  to  take 
it  as  a  mere  chance  result  from  given 
conditions,  but  rather  we  must  take  it  as 
reality  more  adequately  defined.  But  if 
this  is  true,  then  the  ultimate  statement 
of  the  world  is  not  that  mechanism  of 
atoms  and  forces  which  science  con- 
structs in  order  to  embody  her  laws ;  this. 


310  Theistic  Idealism 

which  is  only  an  inference  from  the  liv- 
ing world  which  meets  our  senses,  never 
can  displace  the  more  original  data  from 
which  it  is  derived.  If  reality  is  a  living 
experience,  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  not  possess  for  itself  all  the 
warmth  and  immediacy  and  richness 
which  our  own  sensuous  life  possesses ; 
the  abstract  world  of  science  is  the  mere 
framework  of  this,  which  tells  us  in 
mathematical  terms  how  it  works,  but 
which  may  easily  turn  our  eyes  away 
from  its  essential  nature  and  meaning. 

Since,  then,  natural  laws  are  not  the 
cause  and  presupposition  of  reality,  but 
require  themselves  to  be  explained  ulti- 
mately as  the  expression  of  a  purposive 
life,  our  own  conscious  life  may  help 
determine  these  laws,  without  at  all  inter- 
fering with  their  regularity  and  scientific 
precision.  My  purpose  does  not  direct 
the  movement  of  my  body  by  coming  in 
to  change  the  nature  of  laws  already 
physically  determined,  but  since  my  con- 


TheisHc  Idealism  311 

scious  life  is  an  essential  element  in  the 
meaning  which  constitutes  God's  life,  and 
enters  into  his  purpose  as  a  part  of  it, 
it  helps  as  such  to  determine  what  the 
laws  of  his  working,  which  are  revealed 
to  us  in  that  external  world  which  in- 
cludes our  own  bodies,  are  to  be,  without 
preventing  these  laws  from  being  as  regu- 
lar and  as  mathematically  exact  as  science 
demands.  Our  conscious  life  is  part  of 
the  meaning  which  is  the  reality  of  the 
world,  and  which,  therefore,  determines, 
not  as  an  afterthought,  but  in  the  first 
place,  the  laws  of  the  world.  Science 
has  nothing  to  do  but  note  what,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  laws  are,  regardless 
of  how  they  may  have  come  to  be,  and 
consequently  does  not  need  to  take  into 
its  account  the  world  of  meaning,  to 
which  the  conscious  lives  of  individuals, 
as  distinct  from  their  bodily  actions, 
belong. 


SCEPTICISM   AND  THE   CRI- 
TERION  OF  TRUTH 


SCEPTICISM   AND   THE   CRI- 
TERION  OF   TRUTH 

O  philosophical  theory  that 
has  been  or  is  ever  likely  to 
be  propounded  is,  we  may 
venture  to  say,  self-evident,  or  fitted  to 
carry  conviction  at  once  to  every  mind. 
There  are  certain  tests  to  which  it  must 
submit,  certain  standards  which  it  has 
to  meet,  in  order  that  its  validity  may 
appear.  These  tests,  however,  are  them- 
selves a  matter  more  or  less  of  dispute. 
What  is  the  sort  of  standard  we  are  jus- 
tified in  demanding  that  philosophical 
truth  should  come  up  to  ?  If  we  can  an- 
swer this,  and  can  settle  just  the  measure 
of  validity  which  our  theory  claims  for  it- 
self, we  may  be  in  a  position  to  guard 
3'S 


316     Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

against  certain  objections  which  otherwise 
might  prove  formidable. 

Scepticism  is  essentially  a  demand  for 
the  criterion  of  truth,  and  it  frequently 
has  assumed  an  importance  in  philosophy 
which  seems  very  much  out  of  proportion 
to  the  part  which  healthy  doubt  plays  in 
our  practical  life.  If  in  practical  affairs 
we  were  to  hesitate  to  act  until  we  had 
absolute  and  demonstrative  certainty,  we 
never  should  begin  to  move  at  all;  cer- 
tain cases  do  indeed  occur  where  a  ten- 
dency like  this  is  shown,  but  they  are 
recognized  at  once  as  pathological.  Action 
is  our  normal  condition,  and  doubt  is 
strictly  subordinate  to  action;  it  does 
not  mean  a  complete  suspension  of  judg- 
ment, but  only  enough  of  it  to  make  our 
action  more  effective.  Why,  then,  should 
scepticism  in  philosophy  so  often  depart 
from  this,  and  stand  out  as  a  final  atti- 
tude }  It  can  be  justified  in  doing  so  only 
on  one  particular  assumption  as  to  what 
the  nature  of  truth  in  philosophy  is.     This 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     317 

assumption  separates  philosophy  from  life 
in  two  ways.  It  assumes  that  philosophi- 
cal truth  is  sufficiently  removed  from  the 
business  of  living,  to  render  it  practicable 
for  us  to  demand  in  this  way  a  sort  of 
proof  which  we  have  no  time  to  wait  for 
in  other  spheres;  it  makes  it,  in  other 
words,  a  pure  matter  of  theory,  and  not 
of  practice  at  all.  And  it  also  divorces 
philosophy  from  the  rest  of  life  by  making 
it  the  ideal  of  philosophy  to  sum  up  truth 
in  a  final  and  complete  way,  with  no  more 
possibility  of  growth,  whereas  life  itself  is 
essentially  a  development.  But  now  it 
may  be  questioned  whether  such  a  con- 
ception of  what  truth  consists  in  is  not 
altogether  a  mistake. 

Upon  what  is  the  possibility  of  logical 
proof  based .?  We  can  easily  enough  see 
that  it  cannot  be  anything  in  the  nature 
of  an  external  connection,  which  can 
reach  out  and  grip  two  separate  proposi- 
tions together.  Once  more  we  have  to 
recognize  that,   in   the  logical    no    more 


318      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

than  in  the  physical  realm,  can  the  parts 
come  first  and  the  connection  afterwards ; 
we  never  can  get  a  unity  which  is  not  a 
unity  to  start  with.  Proof,  then,  demands 
a  whole  within  which  there  exists  a  cer- 
tain interrelation  of  parts,  of  such  a  nature 
that  they  mutually  imply  one  another. 
Suppose  we  take  the  logical  process  known 
as  inference.  A  heap  of  shells  is  found 
in  some  place  now  uninhabited,  and  we 
infer  that  formerly  human  beings  had 
encamped  there.  Do  we  simply  pass  from 
the  particular  fact  of  the  shells  to  another 
isolated  fact,  the  existence  of  a  prehistoric 
group  of  savages  .'*  By  no  means ;  we 
might  look  at  the  shells  forever,  and  if 
they  furnished  all  our  data,  they  would 
never  carry  us  a  step.  If  we  are  asked 
the  proof  of  our  inference,  we  find  that 
we  have  really  been  postulating  the  known 
reality  of  savage  life,  in  which  both  the 
savages  on  the  one  hand,  and  their  habits 
of  life  and  relationship  to  their  food  en- 
vironment on  the  other,  play  a  part ;  and 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     3 19 

we  can  pass  from  one  element  of  this  to 
another,  just  because  there  is  presupposed 
the  unity  which  includes  them  both  as 
related  factors.  So  what  in  general  I  do 
when  I  try  to  prove  any  fact,  is  to  get  it 
inside  a  more  comprehensive  statement 
of  reality,  with  whose  other  elements  it  is 
connected  by  such  lines  of  relationship 
that,  when  they  are  admitted,  it  follows 
as  the  natural  result ;  and  the  more  lines 
of  connection  it  can  be  shown  to  have 
with  other  admitted  facts,  the  more  solidly 
its  own  reality  is  considered  established. 

But  now,  if  this  represents  the  actual 
process  of  proof,  it  renders  demonstration, 
in  the  strict  sense,  out  of  the  question. 
In  order  to  prove  anything,  we  must  al- 
ways postulate  some  larger  reality  which 
is  taken  to  require  no  proof;  and  so,  if 
we  go  back  far  enough,  the  ultimate  basis 
of  logical  demonstration  is  our  experience 
as  a  whole,  and  all  the  facts  of  reality 
which  it  has  brought  us  into  contact  with. 
Logical  proof  only  applies  to  the  connec- 


320     Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

tion  of  elements  within  this,  and  not  to 
the  fundamental  datum  itself;  that  has 
to  be  taken  simply  as  something  given  to 
us  in  experience,  which  might  have  been 
different,  but  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
is  what  it  is.  The  ideal,  then,  from  this 
standpoint,  would  be  a  complete  system 
intellectually  stated,  a  system  so  articu- 
lated that  each  part  would  imply,  and  be 
implied  by,  all  the  rest.  Consequently 
the  test  is  consonancy  with  experience  as 
a  concrete  whole,  and  not  immediate  cer- 
tainty. We  do  not,  in  other  words,  go 
back  along  a  line  which  constantly  grows 
more  abstract  and  meagre  in  content,  until 
we  reach  certain  very  abstract  truths, 
which  themselves  cannot  be  proved  be- 
cause they  are  immediately  self-evident; 
but  rather  our  direction  is  towards  greater 
and  greater  inclusiveness  and  concreteness. 
The  difference  is  a  very  considerable  one. 
We  can  be  logically  certain  only  of  the 
process  of  deduction,  but  in  any  case 
there   must   be   a    certain    basis    of    fact 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     32 1 

which  is  not  proved,  but  assumed,  in  order 
that  the  deduction  should  be  possible.  If 
we  take  these  postulates,  on  the  one  hand, 
as  certain  abstract  truths,  each  one  of 
these  must  stand  solely  on  its  own  foun- 
dation. We  may  say,  for  example,  that 
we  cannot  help  believing  the  postulate, 
because  we  find  it  impossible  to  think  its 
opposite.  But  then  the  sceptic  may  ask 
again.  How  do  you  know  that  reality  must 
correspond  to  your  thought.**  and  to  this 
it  is  difficult  to  give  an  answer.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  fall  back  on  expe- 
rience as  a  whole,  we  have,  again,  to 
assume  this  as  a  fact,  for  which  it  is  idle 
to  ask  for  demonstrative  proof.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  conceive  that  reality 
should  have  been  utterly  different,  and 
so  we  cannot  say  "must,"  but  only  "is." 
And  yet  we  do  not  feel  the  same  help- 
lessness here  that  we  did  in  the  other 
case,  for  we  have  not  an  isolated  dictum, 
but  the  whole  of  experience  to  rely  on ; 
and   practically,    if    not   theoretically,    we 


322      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

cannot  ask  for  any  more  solid  ground  than 
this.  If  we  can  see  that  any  fact  is 
thoroughly  consistent  with  all  the  other 
facts  that  we  know,  we  have,  in  a  prac- 
tical way,  no  very  good  reason  to  com- 
plain. 

Of  course,  in  the  example  which  has 
just  been  given,  there  not  only  is  as- 
sumed the  fact  of  savage  life,  but  it  also 
is  taken  for  granted  that  we  know  enough 
about  the  relationships  which  savage  life 
involves  to  detect  in  it  certain  general 
principles  or  laws,  of  which  the  particu- 
lar instance  is  an  application.  These 
laws  of  connection  within  reality,  which 
enable  it  to  form  a  system,  and  which 
make  possible  our  reasoning  about  the 
world,  are  not  by  any  means  self-evi- 
dent, and  a  theory  of  logic  would  find 
an  important  part  of  its  task  in  determin- 
ing the  processes  by  which  we  attempt 
to  dissect  the  immediate  and  confused 
data  of  experience,  and  to  simplify  it 
sufficiently   to   discover   the   relationships 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     323 

of  its  parts.  It  is  not  necessary  to  con- 
sider this  problem  in  detail;  we  may- 
point  out,  however,  that  such  laws  or 
general  principles,  also,  imply  just  as 
truly  the  concrete  whole  of  reality  which 
experience  presents,  and  which  is  itself 
not  demonstrated,  but  only  taken  as  it 
comes.  The  law  of  causation  has  no 
real  existence,  except  as  it  is  embodied 
in  a  world  of  concrete  causes  and  effects, 
a  world  which  has  to  be  assumed  as  a 
whole,  before  we  can  begin  to  look  for 
the  connection  of  its  elements.  If,  then, 
reality  were  a  purely  intellectual  affair, 
and  if  we  were  able  to  assume  that  the 
essential  facts  were  all  in  our  possession, 
we  should  have  in  the  test  of  consist- 
ency a  fairly  adequate  account  of  the 
matter.  If  we  can  take  for  granted  that 
our  past  knowledge  adequately  repre- 
sents the  world,  then  when  any  new  fact 
makes  its  appearance,  that  explanation 
of  it  which  renders  it  consistent  with 
reality   as   already   known,  we   shall   call 


324     Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

the  true  explanation,  while  any  other  will 
be  false.  But  this  clearly  fails  to  give 
the  weight  which  it  deserves  to  a  very 
evident  characteristic  of  our  knowledge, 
its  partial  and  fragmentary  nature.  Any 
view  which  I  may  hold  about  the  world 
not  only  may,  but  must,  omit  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  facts  which  really 
are  pertinent,  and  consequently  the  abil- 
ity to  harmonize  those  facts  which  I 
have  already  gotten  hold  of,  can  give  me 
no  positive  assurance  that  added  know- 
ledge might  not  change  the  result  very 
materially.  If  it  were  true,  as  some  peo- 
ple are  fond  of  asserting,  that  a  fact  is 
a  fact,  about  which  there  is  nothing  more 
to  be  said,  we  might  console  ourselves 
with  the  belief  that  at  least  we  could 
rely  implicitly  upon  the  truth  of  which 
we  were  already  in  possession,  and  that 
growth  of  knowledge  could  simply  add 
to  this,  not  change  it;  but  in  reality  we 
have  not  got  the  true  fact  at  all,  but 
only   a   certain   amount   of    raw   material 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     325 

for  it,  until  we  know  what  the  relation- 
ships are  which  help  to  constitute  its 
nature ;  and  it  is  just  these  relationships 
which  not  only  are  now  beyond  our 
knowledge,  but  to  some  extent  must  al- 
ways be  so.  The  mere  fact,  therefore, 
that  the  data  which  we  have  at  hand 
are  consistent,  does  not  exclude  the  pos- 
sibility that  further  data  would  throw 
quite  another  light  upon  our  theory.  But 
practically,  of  course,  we  are  not  com- 
pelled to  stop  with  the  intellectual  mate- 
rial we  already  possess,  nor  even  to  wait 
passively  for  new  material  to  turn  up ; 
but  we  can  go  to  work  to  discover  ihe 
data  we  are  in  need  of  by  the  process 
of  active  experiment.  If  we  have  any- 
thing that  we  desire  to  explain,  and 
which,  consequently,  as  the  fact  of  its 
needing  explanation  shows,  stands  in 
some  sort  of  opposition  to  other  facts 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  ac- 
cept as  true,  the  process  which  we  go 
through  is,  in  a  general  way,  as  follows : 


326     Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

We  cast  about  in  our  minds  for  some 
theory  which  will  make  the  opposing 
facts  harmonious,  and  when  one  suggests 
itself  which  we  think  is  plausible,  we  at- 
tempt to  fit  the  facts  into  it.  Perhaps 
we  succeed  in  doing  this,  and  then  the 
hypothesis  which  we  have  selected  holds 
the  field  for  the  time  being,  as  that  which 
probably  is  true.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  we  should  seldom  or  never  have 
a  process  which  was  quite  so  simple  as 
this.  Our  first  theory  very  likely  will 
not  hit  the  mark ;  we  find  that  if  it  were 
true,  a  certain  consequence  would  follow 
which  evidently  contradicts  the  known 
facts ;  and  so  we  reject  it,  and  set  to 
work  again  to  discover  an  hypothesis 
which  shall  prove  more  adequate.  Never- 
theless we  have  already  made  a  little 
progress,  even  if  only  in  a  negative  way ; 
we  have  at  least  shut  out  one  alterna- 
tive, and  by  so  doing  have  modified  our 
data  somewhat,  since  the  meaning  which 
they  bear   to   us   is   now  more   definitely 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     327 

limited.  And  even  when  we  do  come 
across  a  theory  which  we  are  able  to  ac- 
cept, this  theory  does  not  appear  all  at 
once  in  its  completeness,  but  only  at 
first  in  the  form  of  a  rough  draft;  and 
it  is  not  until  after  a  prolonged  process, 
in  the  course  of  which  facts  and  theory 
alike  undergo  a  gradual  transformation, 
through  the  influence  which  each  in  turn 
exerts  upon  the  other,  that  we  succeed 
in  getting  the  hypothesis  moulded  into  a 
shape  where  we  can  rest  satisfied  with  it. 
In  any  act  of  reasoning,  accordingly, 
there  is  a  twofold  movement  which  is 
continually  going  on,  from  the  facts  which 
are  given  to  an  hypothesis  which  shall 
serve  to  harmonize  them,  and  from  this 
hypothesis,  again,  back  to  consequences 
which,  if  true,  it  would  imply,  and  which 
we  can  thereupon  compare  with  the  facts, 
and  so  test  whether  the  hypothesis  is 
valid;  and  it  is  this  latter  movement 
which  is  the  logical  basis  of  experiment. 
But  while  in  this  sense  we  make  use  of 


328     Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

the  principle  of  experiment  every  time 
we  reason  at  all,  it  is  better  for  the  sake 
of  clearness  to  confine  the  term  to  a 
special  class  of  processes  by  which  we 
endeavor  to  arrive  at  truth.  Taken  on  a 
somewhat  larger  scale,  there  are  two  at- 
titudes in  reasoning  which  are  compara- 
tively distinct,  although  we  cannot  say 
that  either  of  them  involves  principles 
which  are  not  also  present  in  the  other 
in  a  less  conspicuous  way.  We  may,  and 
frequently  do,  in  our  reasoning,  take  a 
certain  pretty  definite  group  of  known 
facts  as  practically  exhausting  the  data 
which  our  hypothesis  is  to  account  for, 
and  then  the  test  by  which  we  determine 
whether  our  theory  is  correct  or  not  is 
sufficiently  defined  by  calling  it  the  test 
of  consistency.  Granted  that  such  and 
such  are  the  facts,  I  ask  what  theory 
will  harmonize  them,  and  that  which  does 
succeed  in  harmonizing  them  I  take  as 
the  truth  of  the  matter.  But  while  it 
may  be  that  for  practical  purposes  I  am 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     329 

justified  in  thus  taking  the  data  as  suffi- 
ciently known,  I  am  hardly  justified  in 
doing  this  in  a  theoretical  way.  Theo- 
retically, no  truth  is  anything  but  a  more 
or  less  probable  hypothesis,  and  there- 
fore it  must  always  be  prepared  to  find 
a  place  for  new  and  disturbing  facts. 
My  knowledge  extends  to  only  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  universe,  and  even 
though  I  were  fully  convinced  that  all 
other  facts  were  quite  irrelevant,  I  might 
be,  and  probably  I  should  be,  altogether 
mistaken ;  for  in  a  world  in  which  every- 
thing is  bound  up  together,  we  never 
can  be  certain  that  the  next  fact  which 
comes  up  may  not  compel  us  to  revise 
our  beliefs.  If  we  are  to  be  on  the  safe 
side,  therefore,  we  must  not  only  get  a 
theory  which  reconciles  the  facts  that 
are  already  given,  but  we  must  proceed 
to  test  this  theory  further,  by  an  appeal 
to  possible  new  facts,  and  that  not  in  a 
passive  way,  by  accepting  them  when 
they  come  to  hand,  but  by  actively  look- 


330      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

ing  for  them.  And  in  such  a  case  we 
may  describe  the  test  of  our  hypothesis 
as  the  test  of  experiment.  We  cannot 
stop  with  saying,  Granted  the  facts,  this 
theory  reconciles  them,  but  we  also  are 
bound  to  go  on  and  say.  Granted  the 
theory,  this  new  fact  ought,  as  a  result, 
to  be  true;  and  then  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  go  to  work  to  discover  whether 
it  actually  is  true  or  not.  If  it  is  not 
true,  our  theory,  which  included  all  pre- 
vious data,  fails  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  added  knowledge,  and  so  has  to  be 
abandoned ;  if  it  is  true,  we  have  another 
reason  for  believing  that  the  theory  is 
also  true.  We  have  not  demonstrated 
the  theory,  but  we  have  added  to  its 
probability ;  the  point  at  which  we  can 
stop,  and  call  our  theory  so  well  estab- 
lished that  it  needs  no  further  testing, 
is  a  practical  question,  which  will  be  an- 
swered differently  in  different  cases. 

We  are  not  to  suppose,  however,  that 
there  is  any  real  conflict  between   these 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     33 1 

two  nominally  different  tests  of  truth, 
consistency  and  experiment;  and  which 
we  shall  call  the  ultimate  test,  is  only  a 
matter  of  our  point  of  view.  Perhaps  we 
may  say  that  on  the  theoretical  side  con- 
sistency is  the  ultimate  criterion,  while  ex- 
periment is  superior  to  consistency  only 
as  a  purely  practical  point  of  method. 
Theoretically,  experiment  itself  implies 
the  test  of  consistency  behind  it.  Into 
the  hypothesis  he  is  testing  the  scientist 
has  put  all  his  knowledge  of  the  world, 
and  it  only  is  because  he  now  is  certain 
that  another  fact,  which  circumstances 
make  a  very  important  one  for  him, 
harmonizes  with  the  scheme  into  which 
he  has  fitted  the  rest  of  his  knowledge, 
that  the  experiment  is  a  test  of  truth  at 
all.  The  mere  fact  of  his  getting  a  cer- 
tain experience  which  he  sets  out  to  get 
would  mean  nothing  to  him  theoretically, 
though  practically  it  might  mean  a  great 
deal,  unless  this  experience  stood  for  a 
vast  framework  of  knowledge  beyond  it. 


332      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

which  he  is  trying  to  make  intellectually 
consistent.  The  necessity  for  experiment 
comes  in,  not  because  it  takes  the  place 
of  the  test  of  consistency,  but  because 
our  knowledge  is  confessedly  fragmen- 
tary, and  therefore  theories  which  suit 
the  facts  as  we  know  them  now,  may  be 
inadequate  to  other  facts  which  are  just 
as  real,  but  which  we  are  not  yet  in  pos- 
session of.  Our  aim  is  to  harmonize  all 
the  facts  of  reality,  but  we  cannot  do  this 
till  we  know  what  the  facts  are ;  and  it. 
is  because  it  helps  us  to  determine  the 
nature  of  the  facts,  in  all  their  complex 
relationships,  that  experiment  is  of  value. 
It  teaches  us  what  to  look  for,  and  so 
enables  us  to  trace  our  way  better 
through  the  tangle  which  immediate  ex- 
perience presents,  and  to  detect  evidence 
which  otherwise  we  should  have  passed 
unnoticed.  And,  in  the  stricter  scientific 
sense  of  the  word  "experiment,"  it  even 
makes  it  possible  for  us  to  produce  new 
facts  for  ourselves  at  will,  by  controlling 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     333 

processes  in  the  outer  world ;  and  since 
these  results  are  secured  under  conditions 
which  we  are  able  to  a  certain  extent  to 
determine,  they  are  more  illuminating  for 
our  comprehension  of  the  world  than  any- 
chance  experience  is  likely  to  be.  The 
scientist  does  not  work  simply  in  the  in- 
tellectual realm ;  he  arranges  all  sorts  of 
delicate  instruments  in  order  to  test  his 
hypothesis  by  facts.  If  he  can  act  on  a 
certain  theory,  and  get  the  particular  sen- 
sation which  he  expects  from  it,  this  is 
the  test  upon  which  he  relies,  rather  than 
upon  the  apparent  faultlessness  of  his 
theory  in  a  purely  intellectual  way.  But 
the  reason  why  a  careful  experiment  may 
give  him  more  confidence  than  a  mere 
intellectual  hypothesis,  no  matter  how 
apparently  satisfactory,  which  has  not 
been  experimentally  tested,  is  not  be- 
cause experiment  has  superseded  the  test 
of  consistency,  but  because  he  is  perfectly 
aware  that  any  knowledge  which  he  may 
have  at  present  is  wofully  deficient,  both 


334      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

in  extent  and  in  exactness,  and  that, 
therefore,  what  seem  to  him  now  to  be 
facts  may  be  consistent,  and  still  not 
stand  the  test  of  further  contact  with 
reality.  Consistency  is  the  goal  which 
ultimately  we  are  seeking,  but  the  mere 
ideal  of  consistency  is  of  no  avail  to  us 
unless  we  know  what  the  facts  are  which 
are  to  be  consistent;  and  this  we  can  dis- 
cover only  by  a  process  of  intelligent 
search. 

But  there  is  still  another  way,  also,  in 
which  active  experiment  may  be  said  to 
be  more  ultimate  than  intellectual  con- 
sistency, and  to  understand  this  we  may 
turn  again  to  the  part  which  knowledge 
as  a  whole  plays  in  life.  What  purpose 
does  thought  serve  for  the  practical  man } 
Evidently  the  purpose  of  teaching  him  how 
to  do  that  which  he  wants  to  do.  So  long 
as  I  am  able  to  go  on  successfully  with 
what  I  am  interested  in  doing,  I  have 
no  need  for  the  thought  process ;  but 
when    my   activity   is    interrupted,    it   be- 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     335 

comes  necessary  to  review  the  situation 
before  I  can  take  up  the  thread  again. 
The  interruption  means  that  my  past 
habits,  to  which  a  large  share  of  my  ac- 
tivities are  due  without  needing  any  spe- 
cial reflective  process  to  accompany  them, 
no  longer  are  able  to  meet  the  demands, 
but  have  to  be  changed  to  fall  in  with 
new  conditions.  When  such  a  thing  as 
this  occurs,  experience  falls  apart  into 
two  connected  phases.  On  the  one 
hand,  we  have  certain  definite  material 
to  work  upon, — the  present  habit  which 
needs  to  be  changed,  —  and  this  is  repre- 
sented in  intellectual  terms  by  the  sen- 
sational or  given  element,  which  now  is 
made  to  stand  out  definitely  in  conscious- 
ness for  the  purpose  of  revealing  its  de- 
fects, and  which  always  has  to  be  present 
in  some  form  for  thought  to  manipulate. 
If  I  am  learning  to  do  some  new  thing, 
for  example,  to  ride  a  bicycle,  I  can  only 
do  it  by  utilizing  those  same  past  habits 
of   walking,    running,    etc.,  which  are   so 


336      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

inadequate  to  meet  the  situation  now, 
and  which  consequently  require  an  atten- 
tion to  be  given  them,  which  they  never 
would  have  thought  of  demanding  if,  as 
before,  I  had  simply  kept  on  being  con- 
tent to  go  afoot.  But  we  cannot  change 
these  habits  without  having  some  idea,  if 
only  an  indefinite  one,  of  the  direction  in 
which  the  change  has  to  be  made,  and 
this  feeling  of  the  end  towards  which  we 
are  all  the  time  working,  is  represented 
in  experience  by  the  concept,  or  abstract 
thought,  which  thus  is  the  element  that 
controls  the  process  of  thinking,  and 
keeps  it  within  the  desired  channels. 
The  concept,  on  the  practical  side,  is 
simply  a  theory  or  hypothesis  which  at- 
tempts to  formulate  the  best  way  of  doing 
what  we  have  set  out  to  do ;  and  if  it  is 
successful,  if  it  meets  the  situation,  and 
harmonizes  the  different  and  more  or 
less  contradictory  elements  which  the 
situation  presents,  if,  ultimately,  we  can 
act  upon  it,  and  act  in  a  way  that  satis- 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     33  7 

fies   us,    then   the   theory   has   served   its 
purpose. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  find  the  explanation 
of  practical  knowledge  in  its  relation  to 
active  life,  we  cannot  deny  the  same  office 
to  knowledge  in  its  higher  and  seemingly 
more  independent  aspects,  without  making 
an  arbitrary  division  somewhere,  and  cut-- 
ting  off  the  theoretical  life  from  any  pos- 
sibility of  a  scientific  explanation.  The 
value  of  knowledge,  then,  is  to  be  found 
only  in  the  fact  that  it  contributes,  ulti- 
mately, to  life ;  it  has  no  use  purely  in  it- 
self, but  is  meant  to  be  acted  upon.  And 
philosophical  knowledge  can  be  no  excep- 
tion to  the  general  rule.  If  it  were  an  ex- 
ception, then  ultimate  scepticism  not  only 
would  be  possible,  but  it  would  be  quite 
justifiable.  So  long  as  we  are  alive,  we 
must  of  necessity  keep  on  doing  some- 
thing, and  for  most  men  their  work  is 
quite  enough  to  occupy  their  thoughts. 
If  now  philosophy  has  nothing  to  say  to 
the  serious  and  necessary  business  of  life. 


338      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

it  can  hardly  complain  if,  with  most  people, 
it  is  allowed  to  fall  into  the  background. 
But  we  have  tried  to  show  that  this  is  a 
wrong  conception  of  what  philosophy  is. 
It  is  just  our  work  in  the  world  that  re- 
quires us,  if  this  work  is  to  be  performed 
in  anything  more  than  a  mechanical  and 
unintelligent  way,  to  understand  the  nature 
of  the  world  in  which  we  are  working; 
and  for  this  a  philosophy  is  not  only  de- 
sirable, but  it  is  inevitable.  We  may 
get  along  without  this  or  that  philosophy, 
but  some  theory  or  other,  some  attitude 
towards  life,  we  must,  as  intelligent  be- 
ings, necessarily  adopt.  And  this  attitude 
means  so  much  to  us  because  it  is  the 
theory  on  which  we  act.  It  will  not  de- 
termine how  we  are  to  build  houses,  or 
plough  fields,  at  any  rate  directly;  but 
over  those  larger  activities  which  make 
up  our  essential  life,  over  the  general 
principles  which  guide  us,  ultimately,  even 
in  our  most  detailed  work,  its  influence 
will  be  direct  and  all-important.     We  have 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     339 

now,  accordingly,  to  examine  a  little  more 
closely  what  relation  this  connection  with 
life  bears  to  the  intellectual  criterion  of 
philosophical  truth. 

If  it  is  true  that  knowledge  is  of  value 
to  us,  ultimately,  because  it  teaches  us  how 
to  act  in  the  world,  then  our  intellectual 
theories  may  be  hypotheses  in  a  sense 
which  needs  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
way  in  which  we  have  used  the  term  **  hy- 
pothesis "  hitherto.  The  belief  that  there 
is  a  fact  of  reality  corresponding  to  my 
theory  is  worth  something  to  me,  because, 
in  a  given  situation  in  which  I  am  called 
upon  to  act,  it  may  form  the  basis  of  an 
hypothesis  as  to  what  particular  way  of 
acting  is  best  fitted  to  secure  my  ends,  is 
the  right  thing  for  me  to  do.  The  con- 
cept, or  theory,  or  statement  of  intellectual 
truth,  is  not  in  itself  necessarily  an  hy- 
pothesis as  to  what  action  some  particular 
occasion  calls  for,  but  in  the  end  its  use- 
fulness depends  upon  its  being  capable 
of  serving  as  the  foundation  for  such  an 


340      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

hypothesis.  And  for  an  hypothesis  in  this 
latter  sense,  there  is  no  final  test  except 
the  test  of  acting  on  it.  I  cannot  know 
for  certain  whether  this  particular  plan 
will  secure  the  end  I  have  in  view,  except 
by  trying  it ;  and  if  it  leads  to  the  results 
which  I  expect,  the  hypothesis  may  be 
said  to  have  been  demonstrated.  But  it 
is  evident  that  while,  between  the  test  of 
a  practical  hypothesis  by  action,  and  the 
test  of  an  intellectual  theory  by  experi- 
ment, there  is  a  close  connection,  they  are 
not  by  any  means  the  same.  Our  attitude 
in  the  two  cases  is  altogether  different. 
The  action  of  the  scientist  in  performing 
an  experiment  in  electricity,  and  of  the 
electrician  in  using  a  scientific  theory  for 
practical  ends,  may  be  identically  the 
same ;  but  the  object  of  the  one  is  to  find 
out  what  would  have  been  true  objectively, 
even  if  the  experiment  never  had  been 
performed,  while  for  the  electrician  the 
practical  result  is  everything,  and  if  he 
could  have  attained  it  on  the  basis  of  an 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth      341 

hypothesis  which  the  scientist  would  call 
absurd,  he  would  have  been  just  as  well 
satisfied.  An  experiment  may  at  the  same 
time  both  test  the  objective  truth  of  a 
theory,  and  demonstrate  the  practicability 
or  impracticability  of  a  plan  of  action,  but 
the  two  things  are  not  therefore  to  be 
confused.  In  so  far  as  the  latter  may  be 
called  a  test,  it  is  a  test  of  what,  in  the 
large  sense,  we  may  speak  of  as  the  moral 
question,  —  the  question  as  to  what  particu- 
lar thing  is,  in  a  given  situation,  the  right 
thing  to  do.  Such  a  question  is  not  one 
that  we  can  settle  satisfactorily  on  intel- 
lectual grounds  alone,  for  the  reason  that 
what  we  are  to  decide  about  is  a  particular 
act  which  still  remains  to  be  performed, 
and  which,  therefore,  has  to  meet  a  situa- 
tion different  in  some  respect  from  any 
other  situation  that  ever  has  arisen.  The 
only  decisive  test,  then,  after  we  have  to 
the  best  of  our  judgment  considered  the 
matter  in  the  light  of  past  experience,  is 
to  act,  and  see  what  happens.     The  hy- 


342      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

pothesis  is  tested  by  this  act,  as  a  particular 
act ;  but  it  is  so  tested  only  because  the 
question  is  not  an  intellectual  but  a  moral 
one.  The  hypothesis  is  not  that  a  certain 
thing  is  already  true  as  a  fact,  but  that  a 
certain  thing  ought  to  be  done  as  an  act. 
And  in  the  latter  case  it  is  possible  to 
have  proof  that  amounts  to  certainty.  Let 
us  suppose  that  I  wish  to  manufacture  a 
certain  gas ;  I  go  to  work,  on  the  basis  of 
what  I  know  about  chemistry,  to  devise  a 
definite  set  of  conditions  which  shall  pro- 
duce the  result  that  I  desire,  and  when 
the  result  is  once  secured,  there  is  nothing 
more  to  say.  But  what  has  been  demon- 
strated is  the  fact  that  a  certain  proposed 
line  of  action  really  did  accomplish  what  I 
expected  of  it.  The  scientist's  problem  is, 
however,  an  altogether  different  one.  He 
does  not  want  to  get  a  particular  result  as 
an  end,  but  he  wants  to  show  by  this  par- 
ticular result  that  something  is  already 
true  of  reality,  even  before  the  result 
takes  place. 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth      343 

If,  then,  we  distinguish  these  two  atti- 
tudes in  regard  to  knowledge,  we  still 
need  to  bring  them  into  a  more  intimate 
connection.  We  have  already  seen  that, 
logically,  knowing  must  be  subordinated 
to  doing,  the  intellectual  must  presup- 
pose the  moral.  None  of  our  thinking 
simply  ends  in  thinking;  there  would  be 
no  incentive  for  us  to  think  over  the 
facts  which  past  experience  has  brought 
to  us,  except  in  the  way  of  mere  day- 
dreams, if  we  did  not  wish  in  some  way 
to  use  this  knowledge.  There  is  no 
reason  why  I  should  take  any  interest 
in  that  which  bears  no  relation  whatever 
to  my  active  life.  Of  what  possible  use 
could  it  be  to  me  to  know  the  facts  of 
history,  unless  these  had  within  them- 
selves the  possibility  of  throwing  light 
on  my  own  duties  as  a  citizen  and  a 
member  of  society  .!*  Even  the  aesthetic 
or  romantic  interest  is  not  a  purely  pri- 
vate and  subjectively  intellectual  affair; 
the   artist   certainly  does   not  do  just  the 


344      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

same  things,  or  live  just  the  same  life, 
as  his  Philistine  neighbor.  The  end  of 
knowledge,  then,  and  the  only  end  that 
will  justify  or  explain  it,  is  to  serve  as 
an  hypothesis,  which,  since  it  has  to  do 
with  conduct,  may  be  called  a  moral 
hypothesis.  But  this  is  so  far  from 
denying  knowledge  the  right  to  possess, 
in  a  less  ultimate  sense,  an  interest  on 
its  own  account,  that,  on  the  contrary,  it 
directly  implies  it.  I  cannot  form  any 
hypothesis  as  to  what  I  ought  to  do  in 
a  given  situation,  except  on  the  basis  of 
a  knowledge  of  what  the  world  is  like  in 
which  my  action  has  to  be  performed. 
And  if  I  waited  till  I  actually  had  to 
act  before  acquiring  this  knowledge,  I 
should  certainly  be  compelled  to  put  up 
with  an  hypothesis  that  was  unneces- 
sarily inadequate.  Intellectual  know- 
ledge, which  is  knowledge  about  matters  . 
of  fact,  is  thus  the  absolute  presupposi- 
tion of  moral  action,  if  this  latter  is  to 
be  intelligent;   and  for  intellectual  know- 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     345 

ledge  to  be  an  effective  instrument  when 
it  is  needed,  it  will  have  to  be  cultivated 
meanwhile  on  its  own  account.  And, 
more  than  this,  it  is  a  presupposition, 
not  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a  necessary 
means  to  an  end  which,  once  attained, 
can  forthwith  dispense  with  it,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  as  itself  the  most  impor- 
tant factor  in  this  end.  Just  as  soon  as 
we  get  above  the  level  of  purely  physical 
action,  knowledge  forms  an  absolutely 
essential  part  of  that  active  experience 
in  which  life  consists.  It  is  just  this 
which  differentiates  the  spiritual  from 
the  animal  —  the  presence  in  it  of  rational 
insight.  Experience  cannot  satisfy  us, 
except  as  we  feel  that  we  have  got 
hold,  in  some  fairly  adequate  measure, 
of  the  meaning  of  this  experience  in 
terms  of  all  the  world,  and  so  in  terms 
of  knowledge.  Consequently,  while  the 
distinction  still  remains  valid,  we  find 
that  it  is  impossible  to  make  any  real 
separation,    after    all,   between   action   as 


346      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

a  test  for  the  validity  of  an  hypothesis 
which  is  applied  to  a  concrete  practical 
or  moral  situation,  and  this  same  action 
as  testing  theoretically  the  knowledge  on 
which  our  practical  hypothesis  is  based. 
Since  all  experience  which  rises  above 
the  physical  plane  has  to  do  with  essen- 
tially similar  facts  to  those  with  which 
a  new  moral  situation  is  concerned,  the 
ability  on  the  part  of  our  practical  hy- 
pothesis to  meet  this  particular  situa- 
tion, by  that  very  fact  throws  light 
upon  the  nature  of  reality.  It  is 
through  just  such  situations  in  the 
past  —  it  is  through  life,  in  a  word  —  that 
we  have  gained  all  the  material  that 
we  possess  for  answering  questions 
about  reality  at  all;  and  it  is  only  by 
getting  new  experience,  which  of  course 
is  always  in  the  form  of  particular  situa- 
tions, that  we  can  add  to  this  know- 
ledge. On  the  other  hand,  6ur  practical 
question  is  not  answered,  our  practical 
need  not  met,  except  as  the  action  which 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     347 

attempts  to  meet  it  helps  also  to  clear 
up  the  intellectual  statement  of  the 
world;  for  an  action,  as  a  rational  ex- 
perience, only  exists  as  it  understands 
itself  in  terms  of  its  relations  to  reality 
beyond  it.  In  any  definite  act  of  life 
which  has  a  spiritual  value,  it  is  im- 
possible to  separate  the  use  of  the  hy- 
pothesis as  the  means  of  reaching  an 
immediate  practical  end,  and  the  use  of 
this  result,  in  turn,  as  a  test  of  the 
hypothesis  regarded  as  an  intellectual 
truth,  for  both  these  elements  are  for  a 
rational  being  inseparably  blended. 

A  philosophical  theory,  then,  is  simply 
the  systematization  of  such  intellectual 
knowledge.  It  is  the  most  consistent 
statement  I  am  able  to  make  as  to  what 
the  nature  of  reality  is  like  —  a  statement, 
however,  which  is  made,  not  on  its  own 
account,  but  because  I  need  the  best 
knowledge  I  can  get  of  the  world  in 
order  to  tell  me  how  to  do  my  duty  in 
the  world.     And  it  is  for  this  reason  that 


348      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

absolute  scepticism  is  impossible  for  a 
rational  being.  I  may  be  sceptical  about 
certain  philosophies,  but  if  I  am  to  live 
in  the  world  at  all,  and  live  as  a  rational 
being,  some  hypothesis  I  must  have  by 
which  to  direct  rny  actions.  Otherwise 
it  is  only  an  animal  existence  that  I  am 
living.  It  is,  consequently,  no  mere  re- 
sult of  chance  that  our  knowledge  is  only 
partial,  and  not  in  the  form  of  a  fully 
rounded  system.  It  is  impossible  to  get 
reality  completely  summed  up  in  thought, 
if  thought  leads  us  to  do  something  which 
thus  changes  reality.  Not  only  is  our 
present  thought  not  final,  but  the  whole 
justification  of  thinking  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  final,  and  that  life  still  has 
something  for  us  to  do  for  which  thought 
is  a  necessary  preparation.  Nothing,  in- 
deed, could  be  more  tedious  and  insipid 
than  thought  which  leads  to  no  new 
developments,  which  grinds  over  the 
same  thing  again  and  again,  and  is  sim- 
ply  itself    indefinitely.     And   yet   this    is 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     349 

just  what  the  goal  of  life  would  be,  if  the 
ideal  were  a  state  of  perfect  knowledge. 
In  saying  that  truth  represents  at  best 
a  more  or  less  probable  hypothesis,  which 
no  conceivable  circumstances  would  ever 
enable  us  to  make  logically  complete,  we 
are,  it  is  true,  abandoning  an  ideal  which 
has  been  very  widespread  and  very  per- 
sistent. Nevertheless  we  may  fairly  ask 
what,  after  all,  there  is  so  enticing  in  the 
ideal  of  certainty,  that  we  should  hesi- 
tate to  give  it  up }  Might  not  a  life  of 
certainty,  indeed,  be  a  rather  stupid  life  ? 
If  truth  is  meant  to  furnish  us  with  an 
hypothesis  for  action,  why  should  we 
insist  on  being  insured  against  all  pos- 
sible mischance  before  we  begin  to  act.!* 
Is  there  not  a  charm  also  in  the  fact 
of  risking  something,  of  having  the 
courage  to  venture,  and  to  take  the 
consequences .''  If,  indeed,  the  ideal  were 
perfect  and  complete  knowledge,  some- 
thing finished  and  done  for,  we  might 
have   some   reason   to   complain.     But   if 


350      Scepticism  ami  Criterion  of  Truth 

the  zest  of  life  is  found  in  living,  a 
finished  state  of  knowledge  would  be 
no  substitute  for  it.  That  we  have  to 
act  upon  a  knowledge  that  is  incomplete 
is  no  real  hardship,  if  we  get  the  essence 
of  reality  in  our  action,  and  not  in  know- 
ledge, except  as  this  forms  a  part  of 
action.  If  our  share  in  a  reality  which 
is  a  never-ending  process,  consists  in  that 
which  we  contribute  to  the  active  work 
of  the  world,  we  do  not  want  this  pro- 
cess ever  to  end  in  a  passive  state  of 
thought.  There  does  not  seem,  then, 
to  be  any  very  strong  reason  why  we 
should  not  be  satisfied  with  the  guide 
of  probability,  unless,  indeed,  we  confuse 
the  lack  of  logical  certainty  with  the 
lack  of  practical  conviction,  and  this 
there  is  no  need  of  doing.  Lack  of 
logical  demonstration  does  not  mean  a 
state  of  mind  in  which  one  thing  seems 
as  probable  as  another ;  it  may  be  con- 
sistent with  a  high  degree  of  conviction, 
even   of   moral   certainty.      We  have  not 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth     3  5 1 

all  our  data,  to  be  sure,  but  we  have  a  vast 
amount  of  it  already  —  the  whole  past 
experience  of  the  race,  —  and  in  organiz- 
ing this,  our  criterion  of  intellectual  con- 
sistency can  be  relied  upon  so  far  as  it 
will  go.  And  not  only  that,  but  we  can 
test  our  theory  by  experiment,  and  this 
is  what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  con- 
stantly doing.  Of  course  we  cannot  test 
it  decisively  by  any  single  result  in  the 
outer  world,  as  we  might  a  scientific 
truth.  A  philosophical  theory  is  formu- 
lated almost  entirely  in  the  intellectual 
realm,  and  there  is  no  one  particular  act 
which  can  be  sufficiently  comprehensive 
to  prove  it.  Since  its  basis  is  the  whole 
past  experience  which  the  race  has  under- 
gone, no  new  experience  in  the  next  day 
or  week  is  likely  to  throw  any  startlingly 
new  light  on  the  essential  facts  of  human 
life,  in  such  a  way  as  to  test,  definitely 
and  conclusively,  a  theory  of  life's  mean- 
ing. Any  single  act  is  necessarily  so 
limited  in  comparison  with  the  total  sum 


352      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

of  reality,  that  it  cannot  possibly  bring 
together  elements  sufficiently  exhaustive 
to  prove  or  disprove  a  theory  which 
takes  in  the  universe.  Nevertheless,  just 
as  action  in  the  physical  world  can  be 
used  to  test  the  scientific  truth  which 
deals  with  this  world,  so  philosophy, 
which  deals  with  life  in  its  entirety,  can 
be  brought  to  the  test  of  life.  In  other 
words,  we  come  back  to  the  common- 
place that  we  can  find  out  the  meaning 
of  life  only  by  living,  not  by  merely 
reasoning  about  it.  The  consistency  of 
which  we  are  in  search  is  not  the  mere 
logical  consistency  of  certain  abstract 
truths,  nor  the  consistency  of  scientific 
formulae  simply,  though  these  are  both 
a  part  of  it ;  but  it  is  the  consistency 
which  is  demanded  by  our  whole  nature 
as  life  develops  it,  and  so  it  is  only 
life  that  can  bring  to  light  the  data 
without  which  our  intellectual  solution 
will  be  nothing  but  a  bare  framework, 
logically    correct   perhaps,  but   absolutely 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth      353 

inadequate.  The  youth  whose  experi- 
ence is  limited  cannot  possibly,  by  mere 
intellectual  gymnastics,  reach  the  riper 
insight  of  the  man ;  he  may  echo  the 
same  formulae,  and  may  see  how  logi- 
cally they  are  arrived  at,  but  they  do 
not  mean  the  same  to  him.  And  since 
living  is  more  comprehensive  a  thing 
than  any  particular  phase  within  it,  we 
cannot,  as  we  have  seen,  test  a  theory 
which  has  to  do  with  life  in  its  com- 
pleteness, except  by  a  process  which  is 
slower  and  less  definitely  formulated 
than  the  one  we  use  for  minor  beliefs. 
But  yet  this  process  is  no  less  real. 
What  is  the  ultimate  test  of  a  philo- 
sophical theory  .-*  Simply  its  ability  to 
harmonize  all  the  elements  of  life  —  in- 
tellectual, emotional,  and  practical  —  in  the 
progressive  experience  of  living,  as  the 
test  of  a  scientific  theory  is  its  ability  to 
harmonize  that  part  of  life  which  is 
made  up  of  our  relation  to  the  physical 
world.     For  each  individual,   that  test  is 


354      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

h\§  whole  life  experience ;  for  the  race, 
it  is  that  vaguer  process  through  which 
beliefs  which  fail  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  life  are  weeded  out,  and  more  ade- 
quate conceptions  take  their  place.  Of 
course  this  makes  the  work  of  testing 
truth  far  more  slow  and  tedious  than  our 
impatient  desires  can  rest  satisfied  with, 
and  we  have  constantly  the  attempt  to 
find  some  shorter  cut,  which  shall  enable 
us  to  get  demonstration  here  and  now. 
But  we  have  only  to  look  back  over  the 
history  of  thought  to  see  that  it  is  pre- 
cisely demonstration  which,  in  the  long 
run,  is  farthest  off  from  demonstrating; 
whether  we  are  willing  or  not,  in  reality 
the  search  for  truth  is  a  long  and  a  slow 
one.  Of  course  this  is  not  saying  that 
there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  fold 
our  hands  and  wait,  or  that,  until  some 
far-off  issue  is  reached,  all  things  are 
alike  possible.  We  have  already  a  large 
amount  of  experience  back  of  us  to 
form    our    conclusions    on,   and    a    thing 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth      3  5  5 

may  have  any  degree  of  probability,  ac- 
cording as  it  meets  the  test  of  consist- 
ency with  these  facts  already  known. 
It  is  only  demonstration,  absolute  cer- 
tainty, that  we  must  do  without;  and  in 
so  far  as  intellectual  reasoning  fails  to 
reach  results  which  command  the  uni- 
versal acceptance  of  mankind,  it  is  only 
to  time  and  added  experience  that  we 
can  look,  not  indeed  even  now  for  logi- 
cal certainty,  but  for  an  ever-growing 
agreement  and  strength  of  conviction. 

And  we  may  reply  in  a  similar  way 
to  the  objection  that  the  incompleteness 
of  knowledge  makes  it  impossible  that 
it  should  satisfy  us ;  if  knowledge  is,  and 
must  be,  incomplete,  then  not  only  can 
we  never  be  certain  that  it  is  true,  but 
we  can  say  positively  that  it  is  not  true, 
since  the  facts  which  it  fails  to  include 
would  necessarily  modify  it.  But  because 
knowledge  fails  to  be  complete,  it  does 
not  therefore  follow  that  it  may  not  be 
true  essentially,  and  adequate  to  our  pur- 


356      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

pose.  There  are  two  conceptions  here 
which  we  should  distinguish.  A  theory 
may  be  inadequate  because,  while  it  ac- 
counts for  a  certain  number  of  facts, 
there  are  other  facts  for  which  it  finds 
no  room ;  and  such  a  theory  must  give 
place,  as  knowledge  grows,  to  one  that 
is  more  comprehensive,  as  the  Ptolemaic 
system  gave  place  to  the  Copernican. 
Or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  theory  may  be 
correct  in  general  outline,  and  capable 
of  admitting  new  facts  as  they  come  to 
light  without  changing  its  essential  nat- 
ure; and  then  we  have  no  hesitation  in 
calling  the  theory  true,  even  though  we 
admit  that  the  truth  is  of  a  kind  which 
is  formal  rather  than  real,  and  that  it 
never  will  outgrow  the  need  of  a  con- 
tinual modification  in  detail,  as  its  ab- 
stract correctness  comes  to  be  applied 
to  facts,  and  to  take  up  a  concrete  fill- 
ing. If  the  best  understanding  we  can 
get  of  life  is  so  utterly  inadequate,  that 
we  are  compelled   to    say  that,  from   the 


Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth      357 

standpoint  of  reality  as  a  whole,  the 
essence  of  the  thing  would  take  on  a 
shape  which  is  utterly  unlike  anything 
we  know,  then  indeed  we  might  be  ex- 
cused for  feeling  that  our  appearance  of 
knowledge  is  a  cheat  and  a  delusion. 
But  we  do  not  need  to  hold  this.  We 
may  fairly  demand,  and  in  the  hope 
of  some  day  finding  our  demand  real- 
ized, that  the  theory  which  we  accept  as 
true  should,  at  least  in  outline,  represent 
the  ultimate  truth,  without  going  beyond 
such  insight  as  the  nature  of  our  own 
lives  may  render  us  capable  of  under- 
standing. A  profounder  knowledge,  then, 
would  not  result  in  making  this  less 
real,  but  more  so;  it  would  transform  it 
only  by  filling  it  out,  by  making  it  con- 
crete, and  adding  to  it  in  value  and  ap- 
preciation. We  have  no  need  to  exalt 
our  own  experience,  or  to  deny  that  it 
comes  immeasurably  short  of  realizing 
the  full  richness  of  the  world.  But  this 
more  ultimate  reality  is   not   therefore   a 


358      Scepticism  and  Criterion  of  Truth 

thing  unknown  and  mysterious,  but  the 
same  active,  conscious  life  of  social  values, 
raised  to  a  vastly  higher  power.  In  its 
essential  nature  our  theory  may  be  true, 
but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth,  simply 
because  reality  is  not  theory,  but  life. 
For  any  truth  that  is  vital,  that  is  more 
than  a  bare  intellectual  outline,  we  must 
go  to  life  itself,  and  to  the  ever-increasing 
wealth  of  meaning  which  is  revealing 
itself  in  the  history  of  mankind. 


INDEX 


Absolute,  Hegel's,  170,  185, 
191,  198,  205,  208,  217. 

Activity,  conscious,  240-242, 
290-292,  350. 

Agnosticism,  151,  155,  224- 
233,  249-264,  268. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  7. 

Berkeley,  79,  88,  91, 108, 113, 
243,  268,  270. 

Categories,  170, 181-184, 195. 
Causation,  35-39,  48-51.  53. 

55,61,71-73,  110-112,113, 

125, 142,  145,  154, 159,  235, 

278,  323. 
Change,  27,  33,  45,  46. 
Concepts,  93-99,    171,   173, 

243.  336,  339- 
Consciousness,  nature  of,  69- 

71,  119,  150,  152,  169,  187, 

193.  239- 
Consciousness,  origin  of,  67, 

70. 
Cosmology,  18,  53. 

Descartes,  25. 
Design,  see  Teleology, 
Development,  176,  189,  196, 

222. 
Dialectic,  Hegel's,  172,  180. 
Dualism,  23  ff. 

Empiricism,  97,  io6, 122, 136. 


Energy,  Conservation  of,  37, 

300. 
Epistemology,  18, 88-92, 113, 

123, 138,  155,  202,  233-248, 

255-257. 

Evolution,  66,  208,  309. 

Experience,  see  Conscious- 
ness. 

Experiment,  327-334,  351. 

Explanation,  325. 

Feeling  and  thought,  12-14. 

First  Cause,  54. 

Force,  72,  no,  183,  223,  279. 

God,  existence  of,  see  The- 
ism and  Pantheism. 

Hegel,  159-217,  221,  268. 
Hume,  29,  89, 108  ff.,  136, 295. 

Idealism,  objective,  156,  234. 
Idealism,  subjective,  75-84, 

88,  234,  236. 
Idealism,  theistic,  267-311. 
Ideas,  see  Concepts. 
Inference,  318. 
Innate  ideas,  100. 
Interaction,  see  Causation. 

Judgment,  256. 

Kant,  132-156,  159,  164,  170, 
179.  191.  201, 232,  249-256. 


359 


360 


Index 


Knowledge,      see      Episte- 
mology, 

Locke,  30. 
Logic,  322. 

Materialism,  62-76,  87,  260. 
Mathematics,     99,    133-135, 

137. 
Matter,  26,  34,  52,  73-75,  76- 

79,  223. 
Matter,  creation  of,  51. 
Mechanism    and    teleology, 

see  Teleology. 
Memory,  244,  248. 
Metaphysics,  19-20,  23,  134, 
Mind,  see  Soul. 
Mind  and  body,  relation  of, 

34  ff-'  43-44.  300-311. 
Monism,  40,  302-306. 

Necessary    truths,    101-107, 

110-112,  136,  320. 
Necessity,  iii,  124,  134,  136, 

140-145,  153. 
Nominalists,  96. 

Objective  world,  15,  90,  113, 
122,  147,  193,  201,  203, 
235  ff.,  249,  252,  270  ff. 

Ontology,  16. 

Pantheism,   39-49,   62,   210, 

282-290,  302-306. 
Parallelism,  43,  300-311. 
Personality,  see  Self. 
Phenomenalism,     40.     47, 

221  ff ,  302-306. 
Philosophy,  definition,  2. 
Philosophy  and  science,  see 

Science. 
Plato,  93,  241. 
Positivism,  7-10,  226  ff. 
Proof,  317  ff. 


Psychology,  118-121,  193. 
Purpose,  see  Teleology. 

liQualities,  28. 

Kationalism  89-125, 130, 151. 
Realists,  96. 

Relativity  of  knowledge,  259- 
264. 

Scepticism,  227, 316, 337, 348. 
Science  and  philosophy,  7- 

II,  63-65,227-230. 
Self,  the,  29,  108,  121,  144, 

148,  150,  164-166,  168-170, 

187,  198,  202,  206  ff ,  254, 

281,  291-300. 
Sensationalism,  89-125,  130, 

146,  236-248. 
Sensations,  95,  120,  188,  239, 

242,  262. 
Sociology,  204. 
Socrates,  93. 
Solipsism,  113,  199,  203. 
Soul,  the,  26,  29-33,  34.  108, 

296-300. 
Space,  52,  142,  253. 
Spinoza,  44,  301. 
Substance  and  attributes,  26- 

33.  42-45.  78,  142, 144,  223, 
272. 

Teleology,  53-58,   241,  273, 

306-311. 
Theism,  39,  49-58,  62,  267- 

311- 
'  Thing,"  nature  of  a,  26-30, 

182,  273-278. 
Thought,   function   of,   334, 

343- 
Time,  142,  253. 

Will,  280,  282. 
Wollf,  133. 


^TUB^ 


^^^ 


OF  THB 


UNIVERSITY 


Hyyi4 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRAJ 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  b* 
Fine 


^  6  1951 


^"     LIBRARY  USE 

OCT  111951 


10Mar52HW 
25Feb52LU 

LD  21-100m-12,'46(A2012si6)4120 


overc 

a  ^eryetfth  day  c 


ilUV   5  1947 

MAR  2  5  1948 

.    n 

jfeC  2«  -.950 

.:  { 

YA  02980 


'**♦ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNTii  lylBRARY 


